The last of the video interviews from the Teach-in, once again courtesy of J.S.
A housekeeper, Golda Hawn(?)
Another housekeeper, Tracey Holmes(?)
Tom Payne, a music professor
Janice Zeman, a psychology professor
Arthur Knight, an Associate Professor of American Studies and English and head of the Literary Cultural Studies and Film Studies Program
Leisa Meyer, whom you may remember from Town Hall yesterday
L.W., a senior. We aren't sure why she's giving off a pink aura, unless it's because she's beautiful and it's Valentine's day
Velma Scaife, Bureau Chief of WVEC TV
C.A., a student
K.G., another student
A freshman and local, K.L.

2/14/08 4:50PM

Press Statement from an Officer of the William and Mary Young Democrats:

The College of William and Mary Young Democrats fully condones the efforts of the William and Mary community in this moment of deep sadness. Since the untimely resignation of the College President, Gene R. Nichol, the campus and community has been in a continuous uproar of student voices crying high upon the gale. The student body has embodied all of the progressive ideals and undying respect for the United States Constitution of President Nichol into a galvanized movement for the betterment of the College of William and Mary. As a group established on the ideals of the Constitution and promoting progressive ideals here at the College, it would be amiss if we did not stand with any movement who seeks progressive values and Constitutional respect. We stand with all those who promote these ideals; this movement is no longer about one man but about what one man has done for the progress of diversity, respect, community, knowledge and equality and about continuing his efforts as a tribute to his legacy. We cannot stand by as the ideas of progressive aspirations and Constitutional duties pass away with the loss of one. President Nichol represents a spirit of unconquerable belief in the duties of people everywhere and that the Constitution of this nation cannot be treated as an Enron document – easily shredded and disregarded until it is too late. Additionally, President Nichol has come to represent the hopes of the great leaders of our Party; that diversity, equality, choice, knowledge, and freedom will not perish from this historic soil. We stand in the hope that all those who are representing this movement today will remain involved and see this movement of progressive ideals extended to the larger community, that students take it home with them and ignite the movement there until these ideals we stand for here at the historic College of William and Mary today will once again circle the globe in promoting diversity, equality, Constitutional respect, human rights, and freedom.
J.E. and J.L.

2/14/08 4:30PM

In case you missed the lyrics to the Solidarity Song. Sung to the tune of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic." Here:

When the unity's inspiration through all our bloods shall run
There can be no power greater anywhere beneath the sun
But it all amounts to nothing with the feeble strength of one,
But our unity makes us strong

Solidarity forever(x3)
For our unity makes us strong

Is there aught we hold in common with the greedy parasite
Who would lash us into serfdom and crush us with his might?
Is there anything left to us but to organize and fight?
For our unity makes us strong

Chorus

Courtesy M.B.(1)

This is a list of the contributions made by BOV members to the Democratic and Republican parties from 1997 to 2008.

Last NameDemocratsRepublicans
Powell00
Wolf211632500
Matthews773528106000
Banks35003450
Blair40000
Brashear163500
Capps668131374
Gerdelman200028920
Gore00
Herget860000
Hornsby5100700
McWaters064170
Plumeri05000
Poston89250
Thomas35000
Trammell63000
Ukrop83501000
Ukrop, James374111101053

Courtesy of J.L.

I've got the minutes from the Faculty meeting. Thanks, J.T.

Yesterday, I had the privilege of sitting in on the emergency faculty meeting. I will begin by saying that they are overwhelmingly in favor of fighting for the same things we are fighting for right now. Of course dissent exists, but the sentiments of the faculty meeting essentially paralleled those voiced at the Town Hall meeting the day earlier.
The Faculty Affairs Committee (FAC) began by reading their own letter to the Board of Visitors, which praised Nichol's contributions to the College. Namely, they praised his emphasis on increasing and supporting diversity, called the Gateway program effective and proactive, spoke to how he enriched and enlivened college life through his attendance at many events sponsored by a variety of diverse groups, and spoke in favor of his stance as a proponent of both research AND the intimate undergraduate teaching experience.
Many members of the faculty had written concerned letters to the FAC, and the main points/issues can be summarized as such:
-The need for more information: what are the exact reasons for the BOV decision, the absence of empirical evidence or hard facts concerning the decision leads one to believe that it was based in ideology.
-How widely did the external consulting firm hired by the BOV to assist in Nichol's renewal assessment integrate faculty and student concerns?
-"Now what?": Real concern that Nichol's achievements are going to be disbanded or somehow negated. How can this be prevented? How can we move on and take smart, effective action?
-How do we make communication with BOV better? Will the non-integration of faculty opinions be a continuing trend?
It would be impossible to fully recount everything that was said in a manageable space, so I will quote or summarize some of the more poignant comments and questions raised by various faculty members. Again -- For the most part, the meeting did not stray too far from the Town Hall meeting.
At least the last 2/3 of the meeting was filmed. I am not sure who has this document, but the meeting was not "closed" and whoever has the recording should be free to publish it. If you know who took the recording, please post on this note or contact them.
1) A question was raised as to whether in previous decisions about presidents… "has this process been significantly different? What about the degree to which media and public were invited to swarm over relevant issues?" Reply: The use of an outside consulting firm was unprecedented. When someone informally polled the faculty as to how many people the firm interviewed, only Profs. Kate Slevin and Alan Meese (Law) raised their hands. Also, the BOV asking for outside help via the call for letters to bovevaluation@wm.edu had not been done before.
2) The question of the state of the current search for a new President was raised. It was made clear that the faculty did not want to see Michael Powell as the new President, and it was confirmed that he has said that he is not interested.
3) The issues of whether or not the consulting firm was paid for with state funds was brought up. If so, shouldn't someone be able to use the Freedom of Information Act to access relevant documents? Was the President's "severance package" also to be paid for with state funds? Both currently unresolved.
4) Could something concerning a possible conflict of interest be brought up in order to call the board's decision into question? Unresolved.
5) Concerning the system that the consultation firm used in assessing Nichol's performance, it was revealed that even though there was "no doubt that the president has strong support form the faculty [and] no doubt that the president has strong support from the students", those are "basically 2 of 11 criteria in the 360 [degree] review system". Faculty expressed a general consensus that this corporate model did not apply to a University setting. Furthermore, these criterion were not the basis for his hiring; essentially, many faculty members saw fault in a system that assessed for renewal under different premises than those for which he was hired.
6) Concerning the interim presidency of Taylor Reveley, some faculty expressed sentiments to the effect of "if we feel that board has not given us specific evidence, why recognize the legitimacy of the interim president or the way in which we are looking to find a new president?", while others pointed out that "we should support the interim presidency of Taylor because his views are parallel to Nichol's". Although no formal vote was taken, the majority of the faculty seemed to recognize that Reveley was an adequate interim president (but that he should not stay as the new long-term President because he was again appointed in a way that did not integrate student/faculty/staff voice).
A motion was made (and passed) detailing the FAC's "request" for a meeting with Powell and the BOV to answer many of their outstanding questions regarding the decision and circumstances thereof. Another motion to possibly take a vote of no confidence in the BOV was postponed, as many faculty members pointed out that it was irrational to simultaneously invite the BOV for a dialog and to formally embarrass them.
I'll look over my notes again and perhaps add a few notes later. Please forward this to relevant parties or post it on groups dedicated to the cause. Just comment so you can tell people where you put it.
All the best,
Joey



And here's some video from the faculty meeting, all courtesy L.V..








2/14/08 3:43PM

"Professor of English and black poet" Joanne Braxton is speaking in the Sunken Gardens about the state of emergency she feels as the march returns, chanting. "Come on children. Get your nourishment" she says, as the marching students run across the field towards her. She is talking about "what black poetry can teach the world in a time like this" and she reads a few poems.

--M.E.

2/14/08 3:30PM

The Faculty meeting has started as of 3:30. Pictures and video of the march that preceded the faculty meeting will be up soon. A.B. and another student were permitted to sit-in on the faculty meeting. News as it appears...I promise.

Pictures from the march to the faculty meeting at Millington.
Faculty and Students
A.B. and S. starting the rally.
This is what a revolutionary looks like.
The Rally starts across the Sunken Gardens
The Leadership deposits people at Wren to spread the news.
Some people had another, but not necessarily contrary, message.
At the Crim Dell.
Marching in Swem, singing the Solidarity Song (lyrics above).
A.B. Leads the crowd outside Millington discussing the Faculty Meeting and the list of demands.
The Professors arrive for the Faculty Meeting and are greeted by the students who went on the march. The students applaud their approach in a tunnel, echoing the tradition of convocation when the new students are welcomed to the college via a similar tunnel of applause.
More Teach-in Interviews from J.S.
Jaunita Jo Matkins of the School of Education on academic freedom
A resident of Williamsburg talks about off-campus love for Gene Nichol
Charlean Carson of Housekeeping about the staff's 110% support of Gene Nichol

2/14/08 2:40PM

The march is about to begin. It starts at the Sunken Gardens, moves through Old Campus and New Campus and Swem, and should end at Millington where there will be a faculty meeting. The marchers hope to enter building lobbies and leave representatives there to distribute the demands to professors at 3:30. Marchers will be wearing red armbands and hope to convince everybody encountered that we have a mission. Chants are being discussed. ("Whose Campus?" "OUR CAMPUS!!!")

Live coverage, courtesy of A. will continue throughout the march and videos will continue to be added from earlier this afternoon, as well as, hopefully, an RSS feed of news from other sites.

--M.E.

Isabelle Cohen: "This is the year that the Sunken Gardens are elevated."

The revised list of demands has JUST been published and read aloud by A.B. at the teach-in.

At 2:30 there is going to be a faculty-led march throughout campus buildings to announce these demands to the campus at large.

"Over the past three years, the College of William & Mary has blossomed with increasing civic involvement, expanding academic horizons, and deepening cultural breadth. As students, staff, faculty, and alumni, we are sincerely wed to the direction of this storied institution. A lack of transparency at the highest level regarding recent personnel decisions ignores our profound desire for engagement.
"Our love of the College drives us to ask for answers, explanation, and course. The events of the previous days have illuminated that the majority of students, staff, faculty, and alumni of the College of William & Mary have been denied a voice.
    We, William & Mary, demand:
  1. Full disclosure regarding the decision not to renew Nichol’s contract, including any vote that took place, and how that vote was influenced.
  2. A review of the process by which the decision was made, in secret, to dismiss Nichol and appoint an interim President.
  3. Rector Powell and the Board of Visitors to come to campus to explain their actions and answer student, staff, and faculty questions. We do not find Rector Powell’s explanation Tuesday morning to be sufficient.
  4. A strong public re-affirmation from the Board of Visitors that the process to choose our next president will fully incorporate student, staff, and faculty voices and concerns in a transparent fashion.
  5. That the staff of the College, like the students and faculty, have a permanent position on the Board of Visitors.
  6. A commitment to continuing the diversity initiatives and dedication to academic freedom and free speech championed by Gene Nichol."

More Teach-in video content soon. We've been getting behind trying to figure out RSS for you.

--M.E.

2/14/08 12:57

Here's a picture of Tuck...er...wait!

I'm told that this is the work of The Spades. Nice, guys!

--M.E.

A few interviews from before noon at the Teach-in, courtesy of J.S.
German Mendez, Assistant Registrar
A.B., a student and an organizer of the teach-in

Here are all of the emails that have been sent to the campus regarding the resignation and replacement. If you haven't read them, please do.

--M.E.

Some lecture video, courtesy of J.S.
An announcement by A.B. at the beginning of the Teach-in
A segment of the lecture for the class "1968"
Students at the 1968 lecture have some opinions
Professor Tanglao-Aguas leads a dance to exorcise bad spirits

Lectures have begun here! Have some pictures:










Christy Burns lectures on the role of nationalism in Irish Literature. While this shot was taken, the particular topic was a definition of "nation."




This is a brief informational page on Reveley, from the Law School and posted on WM main website, in case anybody is interested.

Also if anybody wanted to know, as of a press release this morning, Chancellor Professor Lynda L. Butler has been named interim dean of the Law School in Reveley's place.

--M.E.

Things are just starting here at the teach-in on the sunken gardens. There are a few tarps out, but the SDS has requested that people bring their own blankets, if they can, to prevent wet-butt.

No lectures as of yet, unfortunately, but we'll be here for you. Promise.

--A

Thanks to you all for a great day's work. We'll be here all day tomorrow, and hope that you will be too.

--Wrengateblog

We just received the following email from the Student Assembly:

"What an extraordinary 36 hours at William and Mary it has been.
"Tuesday evening, the Student Assembly sent a letter to Michael Powell asking him, at his earliest convenience, to come to a campus forum at which he can answer the myriad questions from the College community on the Board's decision to let President Nichol's contract expire. His statement that Tuesday, which seemed to have been rushed out as a response to President Nichol's resignation, failed to address many of the most pressing questions percolating across campus. While we understand Mr. Powell's rush to get a message out, a single email cannot serve as the sole comment for a decision that has had such a dramatic effect on our College community. As soon as possible, we need complete, straightforward, and in-person answers from members of the BOV and particularly Powell--the College's highest ranking official.
"We invite all students, faculty, staff, to submit your questions to the Rector on our online form at http://sa.wm.edu/questions We hope that if/when Powell agrees to come to campus, we can ask him many of these questions and then open the session up to a further Q&A from the audience.
"Keep on keepin' on,
"Your Student Assembly"

Finally, after almost an hour, the "Pinheads and Patriots"section and...we're the pinheads!

In the tiny segment, it is said that Gene Nichol removed the "famous Wren Cross" and allowed "sex shows...a sex worker party," at the College. Then, a clearly edited clip of a previously aired interview with Nichol about how censoring the show would violate the first amendment.

Response from O'Reilly: "Bull. Clearly a pinhead."

--M.E.

11:45PM; we begin to worry that the Facebook tip-off we are following may have been a ploy to get us to watch O'Reilly.

"What's the definition of being killed?" Yes, we would all like to know this.

Will we be after "Life after Death"? (11:27PM)

Right now, by the way, was 11:00PM. As of 11:19PM, we are still watchfully waiting.

Apparently this is on O'Reilly RIGHT NOW. Updates ensue.

--M.E.

I decided to follow A's words with some of my own on this whole affair.

Closely following the media coverage on the series of "scandals" surrounding Nichol before his resignation, I found myself continuously mystified. On local TV segments, the campus that local stations were presenting certainly did not seem to be the same college I live and study at. All interviews were so edited down that many students' statements were reduced to nonsense- furthermore, I suppose in the interest of fair and balanced journalism, anti-Nichol/SWAS/removal of Wren Cross sentiments were given the same amount of air time with no mention that they were the minority views on campus. This inflated the conception that W&M was embroiled in conflict, when in reality most of the controversy was generated off-campus.

This is where our idea of video interviews comes in. This movement, for me, is about protecting the free exchange of ideas; what else makes our institutions of higher learning truly educational? It is also about giving the voices of students and faculty- which have been consistently ignored by the media as well as the BOV- a chance to be heard. Your opinions. The whole text of them. No editing, no splicing, no spin. No random quotes, to "balance" the equation, from off-campus pressure groups. Just you, my crappy digital camera, and the internet.

--JS

A few new interviews, courtesy J.S.




Interview with D.B., a senior, President of Vox, and a student leader of the current festivities.
Why are you here at the sit-in?

A thought about the point of all of this:

I remember back a few months ago when B.T.'s website, I Heart Nichol had a brief scandal when "Should Nichol be Renewed" bought I love Nichol.com, knowing that many would mistake the heart on the buttons and not know how to interpret it. Of course, our generation has learned to read the <3 as "heart" rather than "love." In the Flat Hat, there was an interview with the owner of "Should Nichol be Renewed," who said something to the effect of, "All of this support for Nichol is based on love for Nichol, not on the facts." Which is to say, he thought if we saw his perspective we might not be so supportive of Nichol, despite our love for him.

It's a flawed argument because he doesn't take into account the reasons for our love of Nichol. I think he was thinking that our love for Nichol was based only on his considerable charisma and magnanimity. That's part of the reason, surely, but our love for him was also based on the decisions he made as president and the way he ran our school. Those are the facts at which we choose to look.

Incidentally, we can ignore the loss of $12 million for a number of reasons. Firstly, because we'd rather not have money from a man like McGlothlin. Consider his personal record, for one thing. Then think about how despicable it is to renege on a promise of that magnitude. Finally, people seem to have a big misunderstanding about it. We as a college did NOT actually lose $12 million dollars. The $12m was going into $500m(ish) principle that the college is not allowed to touch. That $500m principle generates a considerable amount of interest over the years, and it is from this interest that the College benefits. Those are the rules of the game. While we did lose about 2.4% of our principle, that's really not a whole lot comparatively.

So anyway. While we do love Gene Nichol--big time, that's really not what this is about. Our love for him is based on the support of the things for which he stood: tolerance, free speech, first amendment rights (that's not really redundant anymore, in my opinion) and love of community.

As we have our 'solidarity' and our demonstrations, sit-ins, teach-ins, et cetera... Our main point is not really the love of Gene Nichol, either. It's the fact that he's a symbol of, and now a martyr of, the aforementioned list of qualities. Beyond that, it's about self efficacy and students' rights in the face of BOV and political sniping. (these may or may not be redundant these days)

Thanks for reading.

--A

For now, it looks like the chaos has died down so that the professors can go home to their families and organize their lives. It seems that everything will start back up again tonight at the UC.

Group presentations are starting now, at 4:05.

S.L. from the Committee for Finding a New President. "...using the Tribe United website to have links on it for each of these breakout groups. If you know anything about this process, contact me. We're gonna have our first meeting this Saturday at 4:00 PM at The Daily Grind."

Committee on Contacting Tim Kaine: Kaine cannot come on Friday. There's a Facebook group to get in touch with him. "Letter campaign to Tim Kaine". Also, they discussed contacting Sandra Day O'Connor, since she has a large influence on the W&M community. Keep e-mailing Kaine and the Delegates and the BOV for now.

Gateway Group: We need to raise more awareness on Gateway and reach out to recipients of Gateway.

M.R., L, and M.A.: the Media Committee, broken up into Local and Major Media, and on our unified message. Make Virginia media a more personal contact. Say "Hey, I'm a face from Virginia and this is what I have to say..." If you are from Virginia and have a message, write an email.

send stories about how the changes made by President Nichol have impacted you in a good way.

D.S. from the Petition Group. They are making a big listserv out of the 840 e-mail addresses on the petition list.

Committee to Protect the First Amendment: L.T. and I.D.: Issues include pressure put on the BOV by the legislature concerning the Sex Worker's Art Show, the Attorney General's failure to follow due process, the fact that that BOV is entirely made up of wealthy donors rather than students, and whether Reveley will continue Gene Nichol's commitment to rights. They plan to create a group on the respect of first amendment rights, to make sure that W&M is a safe place to state your opinion. Make sure that plays, books, movies, and events don't come under attack. Make a long term watchdog organization to make sure that first amendment rights are kept

A.B. from the Teach-in Group, which worked on a summary for press releases and mass faculty e-mails and encouraged professors who are holding regular class periods to have their classes in the Sunken Gardens as well.

C.D. from the Group Investigating the Hush Money. They require a law student or several law students to determine the legality of the actions of the BOV. They may possibly work with the Media Group to understand the true nature of the 'economic incentive' offered to Nichol and will examine BOV bylaws and VA law to determine the legality of the closed-board session and the decision to appoint an interim president in secret. Inquire here for information on this group's meetings.

Academic Freedom Group is trying to get Gene Nichol to do a lecture on freedom of speech in an academic environment.

At this point, the fire marshal is talking to Provost Feiss about what's going on here.

Doing the fun circle now! brb!

A few videos from the groups as they present their policies
Gateway Group Presentation
Media Group Presentation
Petition Group
Committee for the Protection of the First Amendment

Here are a few interviews with students and faculty from the sit-in before the Town Hall meeting.









All interviews are courtesy J.S.