Save the Wren Cross.org Press Release

The press statement published below is from organizers of SaveTheWrenCross.org in response to President Gene Nichol's message today on the Wren Cross controversy.
 
STWC
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PRESS RELEASE 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE      Contact:         SaveTheWrenCross.org
December 20, 2006              Email:   info@SaveTheWrenCross.org
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Nichol Concedes Error In Removing Cross from William & Mary's Wren Chapel without Consultation, but then Makes Same Mistake in Offering Solutions without any Consultation
 
Online Petition Calling on William & Mary's new President to Rescind His Cross Removal Order Now Exceeds 7,200 Signatures
 
WILLIAMSBURG, VA — The following is a statement of the organizers of the SaveTheWrenCross.org in response to today's email from President Gene Nichol to William & Mary students regarding the Wren Cross:
 
"The controversy over the Wren Cross began because President Nichol made a decision affecting core values of the College with neither deliberation, nor consultation. It was regal in its implementation and impact, and the subsequent rationales offered by Nichol for it have been found by many to be utterly peculiar.

The next appropriate step should have been to open a dialogue with the entire College community, including alumni. To this day, there has not been a single communication about the decision from the College to all alumni. Instead, Nichol has today offered what is essentially another fiat, where the College community is left to decide between his offered alternatives without any input.

Removing the cross on the Wren Chapel altar should not have been his sole decision to make, which we are grateful that President Nichol has now acknowledged. Yet, the solution to this earlier error should not be his sole decision EITHER.  

The SaveTheWrenCross.org petition, which has now been signed by over 7,200 people (including nearly 3,000 alumni and over 400 students) clearly requests that President Nichol return to the policies that had governed the display of the cross prior it his initial removal order.

President Nichol's communication today does not meet the objective of the petition language, which means that SaveTheWrenCross.org will continue its efforts to have the original decision reversed. Our top priority is for the Board of Visitors to discuss this issue at its next scheduled meeting in February 2007 and take an up or down vote on Nichol's decision. The issue of the Wren Cross is certainly worthy of discussion by the supervisory body of the College, especially so when already close to 3,000 alumni have specifically requested that the decision be reversed.   Individual members of the Board of Visitors should be proud to state their views on the matter and be held individually accountable by voting yes or no on the decision."
 
(SaveTheWrenCross.org is an ad hoc coalition of students and alumni of the College of William & Mary who are opposed to William & Mary's new President Gene Nichol's October 2006 order to remove the 100 year old Wren Cross from permanent display on the altar table in Wren Chapel, to be used henceforth in Wren Chapel only during "appropriate religious services". The Wren Cross had been a permanent fixture on the Wren Chapel altar since it was given to the College by Williamsburg neighbor Bruton Parish Episcopal Church in the 1930s.  SaveTheWrenCross.org is dedicated to the return to the policy that governed the display of the Wren Cross in Wren Chapel prior to President Nichol's order to remove it, which permitted any group or individual using the Wren Chapel to remove the Wren Cross upon request during their use of the Wren Chapel.)
 
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