W&L Community Speaks on Institutional History

Selected correspondence about the upcoming museum.

W&L Archaeology has tens of thousands of artifacts that students excavated on the Liberty Hall campus in the 1970s but — despite asking — Archaeology faculty have been completely excluded from conversations about the Institutional History Museum. How will the museum tell the “full and rich history of the university” sans archaeological evidence of the school’s roots at Liberty Hall? If the museum’s mission is to “care for, exhibit, and interpret artifacts,” the university has a terrible and continuing track record. The Liberty Hall Farmhouse “lab” and two temporary spaces in Early Fielding — former catering office and mail room — are wildly, embarrassingly below state and federal standards for artifact curation, as administrators have been made aware for more than two decades. The 1793 Steward’s House, associated with the Academy House on the Liberty Hall campus, was restored a year ago as an educational resource but cannot be used effectively: it lacks interpretive signage and is inaccessible to anyone who is not able-bodied or in possession of a four-wheel-drive vehicle. Archaeology faculty who asked how the Steward’s House would be maintained were given a leaf blower to use. W&L likes to capitalize on its 18th-century history but doesn’t materially care for it.

Alison Bell, Professor of Anthropology, ‘91
Lexington, VA


As Washington & Lee designs our new institutional history museum, the focus must remain on the university's primary constituency: its students.

Fetishizing individuals risks the museum being either a hagiography or a hatchet job. Good history lies in the nuance of daily life. I prefer to hear how students across time learned from professors in cramped classrooms, reacted to the outbreaks of war from their dorm rooms, or chafed at poor marks received despite diligent (or not) efforts.

Rather than telling a ‘great man’ history that prioritizes administrators or donors, the stories of thousands of young people beginning adulthood provide a better format for tracing W&L's evolution from a small academy to a premier university.

Of course, key figures such as Washington and both Lees will figure as befits their contributions, but crafting a narrative around them overlooks the faculty, staff, townspeople, servants, students, and alumni that built W&L bottom-up.

Per W&L's liberal arts ethos, the museum should not avoid complex topics. Slavery, the Civil War, Integration, and Coeducation must be addressed thoughtfully and vigorously. However, our museum must begin with the lived experiences of its students, not its namesakes.

Brad Singer, ‘24
Aiken, SC


I graduated from Washington & Lee in 1973. My father graduated from W&L, as did two of my brothers, one of my daughters and dozens of my alumni friends in my hometown, Shreveport, Louisiana. I have been a huge fan of the university almost all of my life and hope it continues to flourish. Recent years have caused my W&L family, friends, fraternity brothers and classmates a great deal of anguish. We all admire Robert E. Lee as the strongest force in strengthening, broadening and solidifying the University during its most dire period. The principles he lived, taught and encouraged have been admired for generations. What he left is worth remembering and celebrating despite the recent movement to tear down, rename and forget his legacy. I can assure you that no one I have mentioned wishes to resurrect “The South,” but I can say with great assurance that we wish to remember Lee as the great man he was. We are all flawed, but Lee taught us that despite our mistakes, we can go forward in unity and with the purpose of elevating mankind.

We will not be served well to forget our history: rather we should celebrate our progress over time and through difficult experiences. It is my fervent hope that the current museum will be maintained as newer exhibits honor other notable periods of W&L. I certainly think it is well advised to expand museum exhibits honoring many aspects and periods and have new buildings dedicated for that purpose. Also, I believe it was a mistake to change the chapel’s name, and I hope it will once again be known as Lee Chapel.

T. Haller Jackson, ‘73
Shreveport, LA


While I applaud W&L for conceiving and moving forward with a campus museum, I fear it will serve ideological, rather than historical, purposes. The museum should of course acknowledge the full history of the university, but should not be some anachronistic “apology” writ large. It should be a place to celebrate the great history of a very unique institution. Regarding the university’s namesakes, they should be front, center, and central to the museum. They should be the prime celebratees—or celebrities.

Furthermore, many items removed from locations across campus should be returned to their places of prominence, not just shut away in the museum. Portraits, plaques, and remembrances should return to the university’s halls, with the museum dedicated to more in-depth displays and historical education.

The current administration should stop falling for zeitgeist games and truly be mindful of the future and the dangers of losing the university’s past. In the early 2010s, my father joked that W&L might turn into ‘____ and ____ University.’ His one-time joke has been slowly, and unfortunately, coming to fruition.  Let’s fill in the blanks and move this place onward and upward!

Edward McAuliffe, ‘08
New Orleans, LA


The proposed Institutional History Museum at W&L presents the University with an excellent opportunity to showcase our rich and unique history, particularly W&L’s connection to George Washington and Robert E. Lee. My hope is that the museum will fully embrace and celebrate our Founders as two of the greatest examples of noble character and virtue in American history.

George Washington and Robert E. Lee are priceless assets to W&L, although they (especially Lee) have been treated as embarrassing liabilities in recent years by the University’s leadership.

I also hope the museum will avoid being dominated by a disproportionate emphasis on the negative aspects of W&L’s history. The legacy of slavery, for example — while certainly a part of W&L’s story — is not a defining element of our story and should not be the primary theme of the museum.

First things first, though. Before we break ground on a new museum, W&L should honor Lee by restoring Lee Chapel to its status quo ante. Reclaim the name (Lee Chapel), tear down the ridiculous wall obstructing the Recumbent Lee statue, re-hang the Peale and Pine portraits of Washington and Lee, and replace the plaques to their original locations.

Gib Kerr, ‘85
Kansas City, MO


I see no need for a museum on campus, with the exception of a small one that remembers and documents the lives of our namesakes. Can’t imagine a traveler stopping in Lexington other than with a desire to visit and learn the history of Washington and Lee or VMI.

Pour the money destined for this project into the best classroom educators available.

Billy Schaefer, ‘60
Scottsdale, AZ


In my childhood, I had the opportunity to visit Lee Chapel when the museum and chapel store were still open. The museum was a large square room in the basement, perhaps 2,000 square feet, with exhibits focusing on W&L’s institutional history. There was nothing controversial about the exhibits, in fact they devoted less attention to the namesakes than most might have expected.

The store offered Lee Chapel and W&L merchandise, including small items like lapel pins and keychains and a wide selection of books on Lee and other figures in W&L’s institutional history. There was also a collection of early edition books for sale, as well as some more unusual items like fine china. The arrangement was a spatially smaller but privatized and upscale analog of visitors’ centers one finds at prominent historical sites run by the National Park Service.

Both were closed in 2020, ostensibly due to COVID-19. The museum never reopened, and the store was dismantled (the room it occupied is now a makeshift portrait gallery). No explanation was ever publicly given. W&L’s administration apparently decided Lee was featured too prominently in the chapel, in spite of the fact he oversaw its construction, attended nearly daily worship services therein after its completion, and is buried within yards of the old exhibits and store.

Iain MacLeod, ‘22
Arlington, VA


What a waste of time, money, and real estate! Next, you will be begging for money from alumni to support this boondoggle.

How about using Lee Chapel, restoring what you removed and enhancing that venue? Makes a lot more sense.

… It is no wonder a lot of alumni from my generation are no longer donors. I have been a financial supporter in recent years to The Generals Redoubt instead of W&L.

J. Richard Uhlig, ‘63
Towson, MD


In the fall of 1956, I began my freshman year at Washington and Lee University. With Confederate veterans on both sides of my family, one having captained a Louisiana company in the Army of Northern Virginia, wounded and captured on Culp’s Hill at Gettysburg, I, like most of my classmates, was convinced that W&L’s two founders met the definition of Christian heroes.

That first semester, I studied American History under Professor Allen Moger. At the end of our Civil War study, I somewhat naively asked my well-respected professor if Lee had any faults. He predictably asked if I were being “facetious.” I honestly replied in the negative, having never heard a negative word about Lee’s character in Shreveport or Lexington. Prof. Moger thought a moment, then replied: “Well, he was known to have a bad temper at times.”

Four years later, one of my proudest moments was receiving my ROTC 2nd lieutenant’s commission in Lee Chapel, standing in front of Lee’s recumbent statue. During the ensuing 65 years, progressive-minded Lee would surely have approved of W&L’s acceptance of integration, coeducation, and probably global recruitment. But he would have never compromised his principle of honor.

Now, after four of the most corrupt, criminal years in the history of our nation’s government, our country’s youth have never been in greater need of principled role models. Only a tone deaf college administration, taking its cues from “afar,” would ever consider canceling such a role model, admired by practically every U.S. President, as Robert E. Lee.

Dr. John R. Pleasant, Jr., ‘60
Shreveport, LA


The university should continue as it has mostly been doing: full history in context. It should continue to avoid any glorification of the Confederacy. This especially means, of course, any mention of Lee’s service in the Confederacy, unless full context is added. Full context includes the fact that he was a traitor to his country in the most basic and broadly understood sense of the word and that his betrayal was enacted in service of an attempt to preserve and extend slavery, for that horrific atrocity against humanity was the primary purpose of the Confederacy, and he is its primary representative in the public eye.

To that end, the university should not display the recumbent Lee statue, as it glorifies him. Especially in that marble vestibule that resembles a religious shrine, but even on its own. It's a magnificent work of art, but its clear intent and effect is to sanctify Lee. It should be sold, donated, permanently stored or even destroyed.

Bill Melton, ‘74
Henrico, VA