{"id":3315,"date":"2017-03-09T08:05:31","date_gmt":"2017-03-09T13:05:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/?p=3315"},"modified":"2017-03-09T08:05:31","modified_gmt":"2017-03-09T13:05:31","slug":"mcreynolds-hall-is-renamed-amid-revelations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/2017\/03\/09\/mcreynolds-hall-is-renamed-amid-revelations\/","title":{"rendered":"McReynolds Hall Is Renamed Amid Revelations"},"content":{"rendered":"

BY STEWART COARD – STAFF WRITER<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The Centre College Board of Trustees has recently voted to remove the name of Justice James McReynolds from the McReynolds residence hall, in light of his prejudiced views and behavior.<\/p>\n

A group of Centre students researched McReynold\u2019s background and requested to have the name, due to his misogynistic, racist, and anti-Semitic beliefs. The request was reviewed by several committees and eventually the board itself. The board members unanimously agreed that the change in name was appropriate and necessary to reflect Centre\u2019s values of inclusivity and diversity. Currently, the former McReynolds Hall will be referred to by its street address\u2014762 West Main. President John Roush said in an email to the student body that the decision was influenced by the fact \u201cthat the values McReynolds publicly expressed were not generally accepted in his own time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Director of Communications Michael Strysick said, when asked to comment on the values of Centre, that \u201cJust as people change and evolve, so do institutions, and I think it\u2019s true that we are always striving to be a more perfect Centre. Great colleges and universities have and always will be works in progress, and so it was and is and always will be with Centre.\u201d<\/p>\n

Strysick pointed out how Centre is attempting to adapt while still respecting its traditions and background. \u201cIn our case, we simply were not aware of the associations, and we are grateful to the students who brought this to our attention.\u201d<\/p>\n

Will Schein, a student involved in the push to change McReynolds, reported that he first heard about the Justice\u2019s reputation from a friend who was researching several buildings on campus, a little over a year ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I first started, I didn\u2019t know who to go talk to about it,\u201d said Schein. \u201cNo one else really knew who to talk to either. Eventually, I met Shawn Lyons, Jamie Leahy, and Dr. Rodmon King.\u201d<\/p>\n

Schein reported that they later met with the Senior Staff in the fall, before the decision was taken to the Board of Trustees. Although the Senior Staff did choose to take the decision to the board, they did not recommend that the name be changed.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were hoping that the Board would decide to delay the vote and ask for more research and information before they made a decision, because we thought they probably wouldn\u2019t decide to change the name,\u201d Schein explained, referring to himself, the other students, and several staff members.<\/p>\n

McReynolds made an unrestricted donation of $53,000 to Centre College upon his death. It would have been impossible to change the name had it been a condition of his donation. However, Schein and his partners sorted through the minutes of the Board of Trustees in the college archive to ensure McReynolds never requested a building named after himself.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe whole process wasn\u2019t as smooth or easy as it should have been,\u201d Schein said. \u201cI think that\u2019s because it\u2019s the first time anything like this has happened and now that a formal process has been created for it, I think that it will hopefully go better in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI had just assumed that proper parties were being informed,\u201d Schein said, expressing concerns about communication during the process. \u201cI definitely think that the people who should have been informed that this was happening were informed too late.\u201d<\/p>\n

When asked who he thought should have been informed, he mentioned \u201cDr. Axtell as he is the religious figure on campus, the Jewish Student Association and their staff representation, and I feel like the student body should have been informed. [The students involved] were told not to tell people before a decision was made.\u201d<\/p>\n

Schein also expressed concern over how the decision was explained. \u201cI wish there was more done to inform the students and staff of the reasons behind it. Like who McReynolds was and how he doesn\u2019t represent the college\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Schein also credited fellow student Drew Howard for helping make the change and a third unnamed student.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that it\u2019s a good step the college took in making people feel more comfortable here,\u201d said student Anna Samonds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BY STEWART COARD – STAFF WRITER The Centre College Board of Trustees has recently voted to remove the name of Justice James McReynolds from the McReynolds residence hall, in light of his prejudiced views and behavior. A group of Centre students researched McReynold\u2019s background and requested to have the name, due to his misogynistic, racist, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":3319,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3315"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3315\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}