Renaming of Campus Life forces questions about renaming of Shipp, Carlisle and Wightman

“It’s a process…,” if I had a dollar for every time I heard that from the administration, I could maybe afford Wofford’s tuition. This phrase has been repeated by President Samhat for months as students and faculty, spearheaded by the Wofford Anti-Racism Coalition, have pushed the school to rename three dormitories. 

These buildings bear the names of three former Wofford presidents who were slaveholders, as research was completed by Rihannon Leebrick, P.h.D, Vera Oberg ‘20, Kaycia Best ‘20, Bryson Coleman ‘21, Destiny Shippy ‘22, Dieran McGowan ‘22 and Alea Harris ‘22, unequivocally proves. 

It was Harris who, standing in front of the Shipp dormitory named for the slave owner and Wofford’s second P]president, lamented having to live in a place named for a man who would have viewed her as property. Nevertheless, the push to rename Shipp, along with Wightman and Carlisle buildings, has yet to reach fruition. 

In email updates, at the protest, in an interview with theOld Gold & Black and again at Campus Union, President Smahat repeated his adage that it’s a process. Wofford students were shocked, therefore, to receive the weekly friday email from Dean Bigger ‘81 and read that the Campus Life building is now named the Mungo Student Center. 

Bigger explained that the Mungo family have been benefactors of the college for years, their latest donation providing the renovations to the Campus Life Building. Bigger shared “The Mungos signed the financial commitment documents for the project in the fall of 2018. The formal naming recommendation came out of the Advancement Committee, which met on Thursday, Oct. 15 as the culmination of the building naming process. The Board of Trustees unanimously approved the recommendation to name the Campus Life Building the Mungo Student Center on Friday, Oct. 16.”

For the Wofford Anti-Racism Coalition, this action has contributed to an environment of district between WARC and administration. A WARC representative shared “it seems the lack of a renaming ceremony or announcement was intentional in not bringing attention to the fact that a building is being renamed, just not the ones named after slave owners. This should not be taken to discount the Mungo’s generosity to Wofford.” 

Further contributing to this mistrust is the disinformation being shared with the coalition. The Secretary of the Board of Trustees, David Beacham, told WARC “It has been college policy for building names to be considered permanent unless a building is razed, destroyed, or its purpose is dramatically changed.” 

Even if this had previously been the policy, the renaming of the Campus Life Building does not fall within these confines and therefore serves as proof that building names can in fact be changed. 

In response to questions posed toSamhat and Bigger, the latter responded, “Residence Halls have traditionally been named for college presidents.”

Here we find another inaccuracy, as there are more than a hundred freshmen students living in a dormitory named Jerome Johnson Richardson, another building named for a donor. 

Bigger also spoke about where the Board of Trustees is in the process of renaming Shipp, Wightman and Carlisle. Bigger shared the Board of Trustees had a meeting “with the co-chairs of the Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion strategic vision steering committee during their October meeting. At the end of JEDI’s presentation, the board gave their full support to the strategic vision process. (Four members of the Board of Trustees are on the JEDI steering committee).”

The next step includes the JEDI committee collecting information from the community to prepare a report. The committee will then present their recommendations to the Board, which the Board will ultimately consider. For WARC, this process is especially frustrating considering the research on the three dormitories has already been completed. WARC explained “Wofford is acting like JEDI must ‘collect data’ in order to decide whether buildings should be renamed. The data and support for renaming the buildings already exists, Wofford is choosing to ignore it.”

Generally, Wofford students are of course thankful for the generosity of the Mungo family and are not opposed to Campus Life being renamed in their honor. For some this serves as proof that buildings can in fact be renamed and that, following ‘the process,’ Black students will never again be forced to live in a dorm, named for a man who viewed them as a commodity.