University officials have not publicly acknowledged “life-safety” concerns in chapel
Despite City of Lexington officials’ denial of plans to alter chapel, university announces construction will continue as planned this fall.
By Kamron M. Spivey, ‘24
On June 4, 2021, the Washington and Lee University Board of Trustees announced in a publicly broadcasted email titled “The Future of Washington and Lee University” that, “Lee Chapel will be renamed ‘University Chapel,’ in keeping with its original 19th-century name of ‘College Chapel.’ The board will oversee and approve interior changes to restore its unadorned design and physically separate the auditorium from the Lee family crypt and Lee memorial sculpture.”
The Board of Trustees did not publicly address this plan again until over a year later. In a September 9, 2022, emailed titled “Fall 2022 Update,” the Board wrote several paragraphs reaffirming their commitment to that June 4th decision a year before.
“One of our decisions about which we continue to receive questions is University Chapel and the changes we are making there,” the Board acknowledged.
After summarizing the first-third of the chapel’s over 150-year history in four sentences, the Board stated their intended goal in changing the chapel, “The Board’s plan restores the building to its original name and recreates two separate, publicly accessible spaces: one for university events and the other for the study of history.”
Critics of this plan have noted the long-term existence of partition gates and doors which already, literally, separate the two spaces: sanctuary and statue chamber. These iron gates and fire-resistant doors are routinely closed during every event held in the chapel and have been for several years.
The Board continued, “A more visible, physical separation between the chapel and the annex [which includes a stage leading to both the statue chamber and basement stairs] helps signify this distinction.”
Before touching more upon this “visible, physical separation” — a wall — one must understand the other changes that have occurred in the chapel since the June 4, 2021, decision.
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In keeping with the promise to “restore the chapel to its unadorned design,” over twenty plaques and paintings were removed from the auditorium within less than a year. More controversial artifacts—like those related to the Confederacy—were removed first.
Unfortunately, there exists no such list of everything taken down, despite vocal student and community pushback.
Not until mid-summer did Washington and Lee University update their website with the first reference to where some of the stated plaques will be moved (since taken down, the plaques have been “in temporary storage” on campus).
A July 21, 2022, Columns post titled “Update on University Chapel Renovations” offered plans for four plaques related to American veterans—including the Liberty Hall Volunteers Memorial.
“The Liberty Hall Volunteers plaque will be contextualized as part of the new exhibit currently being planned for the gallery on the upper level of the annex, adjacent to the Lee statue,” The Columns said.
No further timeline has since been provided for this plan.
The Columns continued, “Three plaques, two honoring World War I veterans and one honoring a Vietnam War veteran, will be moved to the Memorial Gate at the Jefferson Street entrance to campus to be displayed with other plaques honoring U.S. veterans.”
When I further inquired this summer into the timeline for these three veteran plaques, Director of Institutional History and Museums, Lynn Rainville, said, “The University is planning an event to mark the move of the veteran plaques to the Memorial Gate during the next academic year.”
No further timeline has since been provided for this plan.
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As per the other sixteen plaques, the Columns post states “Most of the other plaques will be moved to the galleries in the building or to the new institutional history museum, where they can be displayed with more historical context.”
No further timeline has since been provided for this plan, but the Board’s “Fall 2022 Update” reiterates, “We also approved a plan to construct a new museum on campus where the university's history may be told in its fullness.”
Washington and Lee University officials frequently reference this “new museum of institutional history” when addressing the removal of artifacts from the chapel.
The alleged museum has become the proposed home of innumerous campus artifacts and “all of W&L’s important stories,” according to a FAQ responding to a 2018 report delivered by the Commission on Institutional History and Community.
This new museum of institutional history has made no notable progress since 2018.
Beginning in early 2022, the Washington and Lee University master plan (which included, of ten new proposals, the museum of institutional history on Lee Avenue) received backlash from Lexington residents attending a Planning Commission that would determine the master plan’s approval or rejection.
The community members that vocally disapproved of the proposed museum and parking deck on Lee Avenue did so for several reasons: some worried that the site plan, which was no more than a rectangular plot on a map, was too vague.
Others felt that the museum’s location on Lee Avenue would congest an already-crowded downtown or that Washington and Lee University has encroached too much on downtown businesses.
Whatever the reason for opposition, the rezoning proposal for a Lee Avenue museum was repeatedly rejected in the Lexington Planning Commission meetings.
As the minutes from those meetings show, Washington and Lee University eventually amended their master plan to exclude the Lee Avenue museum from their zoning request in June.
That means there is no foreseeable construction of a new institutional history museum at Washington and Lee University.
The Spectator emailed Rainville twelve questions for this article on August 23, 2022. She refused to answer any questions herself and instead directed us to Drewry Sackett, Executive Director of Communications and Public Affairs.
In response to the question, “Has the Washington and Lee University Administration or Museums Department made any public statement acknowledging the rejection of this [institutional museum] plan, or its removal from the W&L Master Plan?” Sackett responded, “The city approved the Campus Master Plan on June 16. Plans for the museum of institutional history will be developed separately.”
Dodging the question, Sackett continued, “While Lee Avenue remains our preferred location for the museum, we are also considering alternative locations and will continue to work with city officials to explore options that are agreeable to both parties.”
The Board, in their “Fall 2022 Update,” offered a simpler response, “The administration continues to work with its architects and the City of Lexington to implement the Board's plans.”
When The Spectator asked what will happen to the plaques that were to be housed in the institutional history museum, Sackett replied, “We remain committed to building a museum of institutional history, which will house a number of our historic plaques and artifacts.”
She provided no timeline for this plan.
No discussions of the museum have occurred in Planning Commission meetings since the Lee Avenue proposal was removed from the university master plan.
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Meanwhile, the university has just one more change to accomplish in the chapel
Aside from an inconsistency with the chapel’s original look—a chapel which was originally (and for nearly one-hundred years) stone gray, not white—the Board’s plan to “restore the chapel to its unadorned design” faces another major obstacle: the feasibility of a proposed wall that both appears as it did in 1868 while also meeting modern building code requirements.
On July 11, 2022, I submitted a Freedom of Information Act request on all documents pertaining to the chapel between Washington and Lee University and the City of Lexington from June 2021 onward.
The resulting documents, hundreds of pages worth, included various email communications between university and city officials, notably the Building Inspector, Fire Marshall, and Chief of Police between November 2, 2021, and June 24, 2022.
The final outcome after months of deliberation with these city officials (primarily the Building Inspector, Steve Paulk) was this: university’s attempts to build a wall separating the auditorium from the antechamber were rejected for safety concerns.
In a May 23, 2022, email, the Lexington Fire Marshall Trent Roberts indicated that the Building Inspector could not approve the proposed wall because it would allow the “installation of a barrier, which reduces the life-safety configuration of the building. The wall will eliminate access to the rear stair, which although is not a posted exit leading from the sanctuary, upon the occurrence of an emergency, that stair is currently accessible as a building discharge.”
The inspector additionally “disapproves of the occupancy number for the Chapel Sanctuary” if a wall were built, noting that there would only be “one exit and discharge.”
Since Lee Chapel underwent substantial renovation in the 1960s, construction had to abide by the now-outdated Virginia Public Building Safety Regulations (VPBSR). According to Article 4-Section 402-2(b), “Every room, gallery, balcony, tier or other space having a capacity of more than 200 persons shall have access to at least two Exitways[.]”
The present (2018) Virginia Construction Code “designates a limit of 49 occupants with one exit,” according to the Inspector Paulk.
The Fire Marshall and Building Inspector note that, in the event of a fire or other “life-safety” risk, the current maximum capacity of the chapel (525 people) would greatly exceed the number of people who could safely exit the single egress at the front of the chapel.
Chief of Police Angela Greene expressed concern about potential mass shooter events.
In a summer City Council meeting, Chief Greene “spoke of doing a training on mass shooting with all Public Schools and Universities.”
City officials thought it would be fitting to include her in chapel discussions, though, as the inspector noted, “She is not familiar with the building’s egress or occupancy gatherings.”
Following their unrecorded meeting on June 16, 2022, Chief Greene wrote, “I hope they understand the seriousness of the safety issue.”
The Chief of Police’s input recognizes the danger of limiting the emergency exits in a large auditorium to one discharge.
The architectural firm working for the university to build the wall, Quinn Evans, wrote several lengthy emails trying to justify their proposals.
On May 25, 2022, Principal Charles Piper insisted that city officials “have never considered the anteroom stair as a second means of egress from the auditorium.” He continued, “The stair is not signed for egress,” and “the extremely narrow and steep configuration of the stairway make it impractical and inadvisable to consider it a compliant second means of egress for the auditorium.”
Piper claimed, “The auditorium has operated as an assembly space with one means of egress (the front door) for 150 years.”
This claim conflicts with archival files of the chapel.
“The 1929 file shows a means of egress stairway located in the area behind the pulpit stage area.” Inspector Paulk continues, “The Building Official’s review of the 1929 plan interprets the stairway as a dedicated means of egress from the main chapel and lower floor.”
Similarly, “The Building Official’s review of the 1962 plan [which had to ascribe to the aforementioned VPBSR codebook] interprets the new stairway and (sic) as a dedicated means of egress from the main chapel and lower floor.”
After relaying this information on June 2, 2022, Inspector Paulk reiterated, “Restricting the means of egress as proposed is not approved.”
Piper’s claim that the assembly space has just one means of egress also contradicts the information given at the start of every university event held in the chapel, such as this one.
“Speakers have been instructed to call attention to the emergency exit in the antechamber behind the podium at the beginning of an event,” Sackett stated.
The architectural firm proposed to “provide a three-foot by seven-foot access door from the Chapel to the Anteroom, accessible to emergency personnel via a control button from an adjacent Knox Box that releases a magnetic lock.”
Fire Marshall Roberts advised against a Knox switch on May 19, 2022, which would limit door access to only those with an appropriate key.
Piper continued, “[T]he historic character of the space would argue against a visible exit sign” above a door on the south wall.
However, as Piper previously noted, “No original doors were provided at the south end of the building where the addition was constructed.”
The original south wall of the building, as pictured in the below photograph (c.1870), had glass windows in lieu of a white, magnetic, and discreet emergency door.
The mock presented by Quinn Evans, featured at the head of this story, intends to “restore” the chapel to how it looked from 1868 to 1883.
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The most recent meeting between City of Lexington officials and the university for the chapel project occurred on June 24th.
Despite the three-time rejection of plans for the wall, Washington and Lee University officials still endorse the project.
Paulk noted “we do not know when they will have a formal building permit submitted” again.
The July 21st Columns post opens, “The renovation of W&L’s University Chapel…is scheduled to begin in late fall 2022.”
“W&L continues to work with our contractor and City of Lexington officials on planning and permitting related to the construction,” the post continues.
The Spectator asked Rainville, “Has the Washington and Lee University Administration or Museums Department made any public statement acknowledging the rejection of their Chapel building proposal(s)?”
Sackett answered, “On July 21, 2022, we provided an update on the timing of Chapel renovations, communicating that we are continuing to work with city officials on the renovation plan.”
The attached link directs you to the same Columns post cited above, which does not acknowledge any rejection of the renovation plans.
The Spectator then referenced the “life-safety hazards” and the city officials, who “have cited the increased danger of fires and mass shootings in the Chapel auditorium if the proposed building plans were approved.”
“Has the W&L Administration or Museum Department considered these concerns and discussed alternative avenues to house students in a safer, more spacious structure on campus?” The Spectator asked.
Sackett responded, “The chapel has been used as an active university space in compliance with applicable regulations for over 150 years. The renovations are intended to allow us to continue to use the building for university gatherings.”
“The safety and well-being of our students is of utmost importance and factors into all of our decisions,” she concluded.
The Board of Trustees noted their “desire for clarity about all we stand for” in the “Fall 2022 Update.”
A 2018 FAQ still on the university website states, “The Board and President Dudley have repeatedly affirmed that the university will not change its name. Washington Hall, Lee Chapel, and Lee House will retain their names and remain among the most prominent spaces on campus.”
“Robert E. Lee remains prominently memorialized in the names of the University, Lee Chapel, and Lee House,” the FAQ declares.
Alumnus Tom Rideout, ’63, president of The Generals Redoubt, feels that “the university has rapidly abandoned their values and commitments.”
“University officials,” he continued, “care more about ‘Cancel Culture’ and making Lee Chapel a ‘safe-space’ than they do about actually making Lee Chapel safe for the students in it.”