Traditional Chinese Medicine

Not much new to write, as I have essentially locked myself in my room for the past three days in attempts to get over this bug that everyone seems to have. Danni, from the English Bar, sent over some traditional Chinese pills, which I have gladly taken, considering that none of my good old-fashioned American pills were doing anything. It remains to be seen what effect they will have.

The good news is that internet is back on in our building, so I can post without leaving my room.

I'm posting today to reflect on what's happening on the other side of the world at the College of William and Mary. President Nichol resigned after being informed by the Board of Visitors that his contract would not be renewed in July. I spent a good part of the day (what else was I going to do?) reading stories and interpretations and opinions on this matter. The following are my thoughts (with thanks to David Husband for pointing out some BOV practices):

You may believe either that President Nichol got up every morning at 4AM to spoon-feed hungry orphaned kittens and, in addition, was a fantastic leader (and if you disagree I can call you ignorant/closed-minded/evil/neo-con) or that he was sent by Satan himself to increase divisiveness, lose the college money, and bring the reputation of our beloved school down (and if you disagree then I shall call you a liberal, spoiled-brat, ignorant (this word plays both sides), and hypocrite). From what I can tell, there is no other option or "middle ground," or if there is it seems to be shouted out of existence by the two diametrically opposed camps (who sometimes are miraculously able to take the exact same action and make it mean two completely different things).

If there is any doubt in the minds of supporters of either side, they refuse to show it. The truth may lie somewhere in between, but it would be argumentative suicide to admit any wrongdoing on the side that you espouse. The BOV (evil or awesome, depending) has a chance here to open up the records of what went on in their closed-door sessions and be fully open about the reasons that President Nichol's renewal was left to lapse. These records, giving insight into the rubric of grading a college president, would serve to make it very clear why the BOV did what they did. This will never happen, though. Someone might come across looking poorly, someone might open him or herself up for a personal attack, etc.... and so empty lines of rhetoric from both sides will continue to clash unyieldingly.

At Woodberry, when someone was kicked out, whether we agreed with it or not, we were all sat down and given the relevant facts of the case, regardless of what those facts might be. We were told very clearly what Woodberry stood for and how this person failed to rise to those standards. We were also told that the vote to remove the person was unanimous (because once you see who's going to win, you go back and MAKE it unanimous. Which sort of defeat the idea of "unanimous" but I understand why it's done.) The point is that, as high schoolers, we were at the very least given enough respect by our superiors that they believed we could handle an honest explanation of the facts at hand. We might have disagreed with the rules used, or the methods that found out the culprit, or any number of other things... but we understood, certainly, exactly what the rules were. This is not so in the case of the loss of a William and Mary President. And, considering recent controversies about the Wren Cross and the Sex Worker's Art Show, the door is wide open for anyone to interpret Nichol's ousting in whatever way is wished. It's like everyone gets a brightly colored invitation to the "let's see who can yell the loudest" party.

I appreciate that the firing of a college president is a very sensitive issue (and very different from the dismissal of a high school student), but to make a decision such as this, behind closed doors, and then to offer only cursory allusions to reasons of dismissal, however well intentioned or justified, is only setting up the college for more extreme polarity down the road. When every student knows "without a doubt" that he or she is right, then the point of college may have been lost.

I want to make it clear that I am neither supporting nor condemning the BOV- except in their voting practices- because I have no way of knowing what their criteria were. I do not believe that anyone should be happy about this, because I can't imagine what trouble Nichol has caused that would be worse than the national attention that this story is getting now.

In the end, though, as has been stated from every front, "the college is greater than any one man." And things will continue much as they always have...