Meet Matt Davis, W&L’s New Institutional History Director

“Planning is still underway” for an institutional history museum.

In August of 2023, Dr. Lynn Rainville left her position as Washington and Lee University’s Director of Institutional History and Museums. The university announced in May of 2024 that Matthew Davis would assume her position.

His role entails overseeing historical interpretation, staffing, programming, and directing the operations of Lee Chapel, National Historic Landmark, Washington Hall Galleries, and the future Institutional History Museum. Davis recently spoke with The Spectator about his new job and the institutional museum.

Davis comes to Lexington from Georgia College & State University with over 24 years of experience in the museum field. While at GCSU, he served as the Director of Historic Museums, directing Georgian National Historic Landmarks like the Old Governor’s Mansion and Andalusia, the home of Flannery O-Connor, as well as the Sallie Ellis Davis House. He has also been a part-time professor and guest speaker at numerous conferences.

Great uncertainty surrounds W&L’s much-awaited Institutional History Museum. Initially included in the 2021 Master Plan Report, the project was removed and then added to the school’s Strategic Plan the following year due to city opposition.

Asked about its progression, Davis explained, “Planning is still underway, and more information will be forthcoming on the timeline, content, and location pending approval of the Board of Trustees.” 

Plans have also changed from what was originally described in the Master Plan. At first, the museum was to be constructed at the intersection of Washington Street and Lee Avenue. It would have replaced the Chavis and Casa Hispania houses, and possibly the Mattingly House. A three-story, 23,000 gross square foot building was proposed to house the exhibit. 

However, Davis shared that this plan has been altered. After consulting architects, Davis indicated that they “determined the originally proposed site was not optimal for the facility, and the working location is now the Corral parking lot on Jefferson Street, which will provide additional space for the planned museum that is actually larger than the one envisioned in the 2021 plan.”

Davis told The Spectator that the museum will tell the unique 275 year story of W&L which “reflects not only the greater story of our nation, but also is important for the countless experiences, traditions, events, and people, both known and unknown.”

W&L will be releasing a public update regarding the museum’s progress in the near future, according to Davis.

Davis also provided an update on the Lee Chapel basement museum, which was closed in 2020 and has yet to reopen. “Our plans for University Chapel at this point are to evaluate those spaces, and we will be doing some work to try to move towards reopening those spaces as soon as I can get a team in place and get an assessment of the collections in there,” Davis said.

He did confirm that Lee’s office will remain open and unaltered in the chapel.

Davis did not share any details regarding the final display location for the plaques removed from Lee Chapel, noting that the plaques are currently stored in university collections.

Twenty plaques had been removed after the Board of Trustees announced renovations to the space in June 2021. Three were eventually relocated to the veterans’ Memorial Gate on Jefferson Street; the other seventeen have yet to be reinstalled.

Davis’s predecessor, Lynn Rainville, told The Spectator in a previous interview that partnerships between Lee Chapel and other historical sites, such as Mount Vernon, Stafford Hall, and Arlington House, were under consideration. Davis confirmed that there is still potential for these collaborations but could not comment on their development.

In her conversation with The Spectator, Rainville also referenced W&L's involvement with enslaved labor. "Some people are embarrassed by the history, some people don’t want to talk about. It’s a negative chapter in American history,” she said.

Asked to address these concerns, Davis said that he “will present an interpretation that is based on primary documentation. It is unbiased in its presentation; we are going to focus everything as it is and present the clearest cut narrative that we possibly can and from that, it will be a space for dialogue and that's what we hope it to be."

To increase the community’s knowledge about the W&L story, Davis encourages students to visit the museums on campus and in the local community, attend a lecture, explore special collections exhibits, and read books.

Although students might not be interested in exploring such resources, Davis stated, “Inevitably you're going to be impacted with the history here one way or the other … What I hope to do with this museum space is if there is an interest sparked, we will have the resources there to help fan that flame."