A Disturbance in the Force

Editor's Note: the following commentary is extremely narrowly focused and highly, highly geeky. Oh, and way, way, too long. Get out now, while you still can.

Okay. You can't say you weren't warned.

The community of the Gheorghey suffered a grevious wound this week. The forces of stolid rectitude, self-righteousness and inflexible conservatism struck a resounding blow against freedom of expression, the abiding and brilliant creativity of youth, and diversity of thought, action, and being. The College of William and Mary's Board of Visitors declined to renew the contract of Gene Nichol, the President of the university.

We don't know Gene Nichol from Adam. He looks like Meat Loaf, which is, y'know, cool. He carries himself like a man living Rudyard Kipling's adage, "Take everything you like seriously, except yourselves." To my knowledge, none of us has ever spoken to him, or if we have, we were so under the influence that we don't recall the conversation. Our loss, likely.

Though his tenure began in July 2005, Nichol first came to our attention in a meaningful way in May 2006 when he took on the NCAA over their asinine decision to censure William and Mary for having feathers in its athletic logo.

While the vast majority of college presidents would have taken the conservative route, quietly acquiescing, Nichol chose to stand for his beliefs, writing publicly, "An interpretation that penalizes the College of William & Mary while embracing the depiction of a brave on horseback, in war paint, plunging a flaming spear into the turf at midfield, to the delight of 85,000 chanting, tomahawking fans, is, at best, enigmatic."

A college is about many things, but it is foremost about the students that imbue it with its color, texture, and vitality. Administrators (read: adults) tend to lose their sense of whimsy and wonder, ground down by time and the inexorable demands of the grown-up world. They "know better", imposing a paternalist worldview in the name of decorum and almighty endowment rather than striving to maintain an atmosphere where youth can test limits in the one place in our society where it is safe to do so. A place that teaches, and not only in the classroom.

Gene Nichol was not without fault - he admits himself in his eloquent farewell that he "...sometimes moved too swiftly, and perhaps paid insufficient attention to the processes and practices of a strong and complex university. A wiser leader would likely have done otherwise."

But whatever his failings, Nichol never, ever put the student community anywhere other than first - in fact, he erred on the side of the student without fail, and it became his undoing. I don't claim to know the inside baseball that led to the Board's ultimate decision, but I know the wellspring from which it began as a trickle before surging into an inevitable and damaging flood.

I love my alma mater deeply, but my personal worldview - this Gheorghian knee-jerk aversion to self-seriousness - was forged in many ways as a reaction to my time in Williamsburg. Or at the very least, reinforced by the College's staunch southern conservatism. As the Virginian-Pilot's Donald Luzzato, a W&M alum, notes today, "The trick is to get older without getting old, to become an adult without becoming a scold. I’d like to think that my own college behavior (and I have more to regret than many), along with the judicious application of a family I don’t deserve and the passing of plenty of years, molded me into the man I am now, a far better person than the kid I was 24 years ago." So very many of my fellow alums fail miserably the test implied by those wise words and did so even during their time as undergraduates.

My school is diminished today because of the actions of a handful of self-important regents. I deeply regret that I didn't speak up earlier - Gheorghe would have.

Oh, and if you're still reading this, the W&M hoops squad faces a hellish final stretch, going on the road to Wilmington and Towson this week before finishing with Drexel and VCU at home and Gheorghe Mason on the road. Win one for Nichol, boys.

Go Tribe. Hark upon the gale.

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Whitney:

I think Rob articulated the Gheorghe stance extraordinarily well. I'll try not to sully it with redundancy or verbosity. And I'll fail.

"Disappointing" is a term that's a bit heavy-handed for us skylarkers at G:TB, but it's exactly how I would characterize this unfortunate episode. You've only had to darken our blog's doorstep once or twice to see how we feel about The College of William & Mary. We appreciate its lofty academic reputation, lament its hard-knocks education, champion its sports teams, revel in the glorious memories of the years we spent on campus, and mostly wince at what has passed for recent updates from the 'Burg.

Perhaps it's the fact that somehow, against all chrono-logic, we identify more with the current students than with many of our fellow alums, but we've always been a fan of Gene Nichol. He's a presence on campus, not merely for his beefy frame, moptop haircut, and ill-chosen wardrobe. When we've seen him, he's been the eye of a small storm of students, parents, and alums. A linebacker in president's knickers, tackling injustices like they were ballcarriers. Bit of a bull in a china shop at times, but the healthiest dose of reality in a town that thrives on facade in some time.

By most accounts Gene Nichol's legacy should center around his movement to diversify the College. And what a backhand to his predecessors that is. It's eye-opening that we're in the 21st century and our public university was far whiter and richer in its enrollment and faculty than other such institutions when he took over. Even the presiding Rector acknowledged the tremendous strides the College owes to Gene Nichol in this regard. How ironic it would be if said Rector were to benefit from his progress in this area and become W&M's first African-American president when, according to a few in the know, he has undermined Gene Nichol repeatedly. In the meantime, everyone from Thomas Jefferson to George Jefferson should be pleased with what this president accomplished in an abbreviated tenure.

Instead, we're talking about a cross and a sex show (two great tastes that don't go great together). We at G:TB snidely joked whether they had enough real issues to worry about in the William & Mary community if these were the matters that had folks up in arms. Now it's not so hilarious, at least to one guy. Taking the cross out of a public college's chapel except during Christian ceremonies? I dunno, seems fair to me. Allowing the students to host some X-rated art show? Couldn't care less, and I have two daughters. These aren't pressing issues, people -- unless, I guess, you're trying to impose your extreme religious or partisan political views on this state school. And if you are . . . uh, can you . . . like . . . please not do that?

There's been a lot of talk about who the stakeholders in William & Mary should be, and whose opinion should sway the think tank known as the Board of Visitors. Certainly we alumni like to weigh in on the direction of the College (Exhibit A), with those who've stroked large checks using decidedly larger megaphones to do so. At least they've cared enough in the school's well-being to invest in it. Meanwhile, the Virginia General Assembly seems to enjoy using purse-strings as puppet-strings, manipulating the Board with preposterous threats bordering on misguided abuses of power. That brain trust doesn't seem to appreciate the irony of how they've wilted our alma mater's budget with the economic policy equivalent of falling down stairs (see Tax, Car) to the point where we approach privatization, then somehow they want more say in the direction of the College. The "How dare you, sir" blowhard bravado that emanates from 32-year-old ignorants like Delegate Frederick and his ilk just might be the nadir of the anti-Gheorghey vortex that swallowed up Gene Nichol. Somewhere in it all, the students' thoroughly ringing endorsements of President Nichol were cast aside as the triflings of children, as if anyone but the student body could be the greatest stakeholder in the school.

I think most of us will concede that Gene Nichol was not an ideal fit for The College of William & Mary, and in retrospect, he shouldn't have been tapped for the job and thrown to the wolves. He's a hard-charging defender of human and civil rights. W&M is a place for soft-spoken defenders of tradition. Presidents here quell controversies, they don't initiate or fuel them. We'll see a Pat Robertson protégé in that post before we see another guy like Gene Nichol. (Much to the delight of the bastion of Regent University grads in the General Assembly.) Give the people what they want, Ray sang, and it's time to let the outspoken other side have their guy.

The school will hire someone with less zeal for righting wrongs, less of a connection with the kids that attend class, and, because of how Gene Nichol was treated, less of a pedigree. (Rumor has it the Board is interviewing Jim Zorn.) A calm will be restored after a fiery few years. Rob and I will resume fixating on the quest for an NCAA tourney appearance for the woeful men's hoops team. And Gheorghe: The Blog will continue tilting at other windmills, taking up for the little guy, and cracking itself up with inside jokes about airline beverages and nicknames for co-eds.