<p>This came as a complete surprise to me. I'm not sure what effect this will have on Davidson- Belk's financial support is evident everywhere on campus. Duke and Wake Forest managed to lose their religious connections. Can or should Davidson do the same?</p>
<p>he, and one other board of trustee's member, resigned in protest over the vote to allow 'non-christians' on the board of trustees. Davidson, began as a presbyterian church founded college. His resignation should have no real effect on the college. His family's name, BELK, is well-known in Charlotte circles, but the Belk scholarships, etc.. come from a family trust, not him in particular. If he is that close-minded, not sure he was that great a service to the college anyway.</p>
<p>Wow. Nothin' like a feud over the merits of anti-semitism to make you feel all warm and fuzzy about a college. </p>
<p>Now, I'm embarrassed that we ever took my daughter see the place.</p>
<p>Is that like Belk's department stores? </p>
<p>No kidding ID!</p>
<p>I guess that puts Davidson's 86% white admissions results in perspective, eh?</p>
<p>I wonder how many more board members would resign over a decision to do something about that?</p>
<p>BTW, don't kid yourself that this won't hurt the college. While they did a good job of keeping the anti-semitic provision in their bylaws under wraps, the 21st century is a little late to be addressing the issue. This will NOT sit well with the academic community.</p>
<p>It's kind of scary, that this persists in writing. I know that some campuses it can be more of a "feeling" .....but to have a by-law. Sheesh. I can't imagine it would sit well with most folks. I guess we'll sit back and watch the spin.</p>
<p>I'm sure people think I'm nuts when I talk about the historic makeup of the Board of Managers at a college. But, I think this Davidson story is a perfect example. Looking at who is running a school tells you a lot.</p>
<p>"The new bylaws don't remove religious requirements entirely. They say at least 80 percent of the 45 voting trustees still must be Christian, as an attempt to strike a balance between embracing diverse leadership and respecting the school's heritage"</p>
<p>What ever happened to electing/nominating the best person to hold the position?</p>
<p>Davidson the college, as opposed to the board of trustees, is a place that makes people of many backgrounds feel welcome. The change in board membership requirements reflects that to some extent. (The recent vote by the nation's Presbyterians to divest the Church of all investments in Israel strikes me as arguably more negative toward the Jewish community than anything in the present governance of Davidson College.) Keep in mind, too, that not all non-Christians are Jewish and that that the now-discarded board membership requirement was anti-non-Christian in the broadest sense, not specifically anti-Semitic. Interestingly, for example, there is a small but active Islamic community at Davidson as well as a small but vibrant Jewish community. I would guess that when non-Christians are inivited to join the college's board of trustees, both religions will be represented (and I assume that as adherents of other non-Christian faiths become more numerous, affluent, and active in alumni affairs, they too will become board members.)</p>
<p>I do find John Belk's attitude and resignation upsetting, and I wish Davidson had a longer history of openness toward all. But for all those who are stirred to condemn Davidson because of this incident, I think it is also helpful to keep it in perspective. Davidson is now trying to move in another direction,and one can hardly condemn it too harshly without also remembering the long-standing and very specific anti-Semitism practiced by most of American's great institutions of higher education throughout much of the 20th century--and, some would argue, continuing into the 21st century). By the same token, there has been an offensive tradition of racism in most institutions, and once they faced it and tried to deal with it proactively, whether by affirmative action or by adding black members to their boards of trustees, people seemed prepared to move on without continuing to condemn those institutions. I think Davidson's situation at the moment is pretty much the same.</p>
<p>Why shouldn't they have a Christian board of trustees if they choose? Williams managed to keep all Catholics and Jews off its board of trustees until the mid-60s, and had a long history of anti-Semitism and anti-Catholicism into the early 60s even as a non-sectarian institution. It's a choice, as a private college, they can choose to make, and as long as students and parents are comfortable with the governing body, why not? I mean, aren't the rest governed by the capitalist religion? Let the free market do its thing.</p>
<p>What surprised me was keeping the 80% requirement - they clearly see something of importance there. How do they check folks "Christian" credentials? Does it include Latter Day Saints? Catholics? Christian Rastafarians?</p>
<p>I agree with mini. There are elite golf clubs that are not open to women, yet I don't disagree with this because it's a private enterprise. Morally, I don't agree, but I feel a private instituition has the right to do whatever it wants as long as it is legal. I feel the same way about Davidson. It has no obligation to promote diversity, either at the school or on the board of trustees.</p>
<p>I think Davidson should be free to discriminate against whomever they want to. </p>
<p>I'm just furious at myself that I recommended the place to my daughter. </p>
<p>Credit to my wife, though. Her antenna went up at a Davidson recruiting function in Boston. She came home with a sixth sense that the lack of diversity on campus may not be accidental. Guess she was right.</p>
<p>Davidson can do what it wants as a private college as long as it doesn't receive one penny from any government... federal, state, or local.</p>
<p>Oh yes, and the students that go to Davidson. They don't get any government money either because that money ends up at Davidson.</p>
<p>What a creepy place.</p>
<p>
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Davidson the college, as opposed to the board of trustees, is a place that makes people of many backgrounds feel welcome.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I'm not buying the distinction. IMO, you can't separate a college from its management and corporate culture. For example, Harvard has one token woman on its 9 member corporate board. The rest are as male and Wall Street as it gets, which probably goes a long way towards explaining a lack of women professors being granted tenure and a president who says that women may not be capable of high level science research. The board sets the priorities of a college. If Harvard wanted the best women faculty members in the world, they could get them.</p>
<p>Agreed, Mattmom.</p>
<p>By my count, approximately 25 or 26 of the 32 members of the Smith College Board of Trustees are women. If something is not done soon about this obvious discrimination against males, I suspect the school will start denying admission to males! I am glad I told my seven sons not to apply there. I have also heard rumors that certain large State schools will not permit male students to go into the bathrooms reserved for female students. It's like the women have their own little room in which to shower and do women type stuff. Can you believe that? It really is time to cut federal funding of those schools.</p>
<p>It strikes me as rather narrow minded that some/most people posting on this thread seem to object to a faith comminty maintaining an institution that supports and promotes their beliefs and philosophy. I see nothing odd in the fact that the board of a catholic school should be composed of Catholics or that the board of a Presbyterian school should be composed of Protestants. I doubt the next Pope will niminate the Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem to the College of Cardinals and suspect that even if he did the rabbi might decline the offer.</p>
<p>Doesn't tolerance mean we should allow people with common interests, beliefs, and backgrounds form and maintain private institutions that support those interests, beliefs, and backgrounds? Is the only way to respect other peoples beliefs to deny your own? If I don't want to eat meat on friday, or pig any day, or cut my hair, or face any direction bur towards mecca when I pray how is that skin off anybody's nose? And if I want to start and maintain a school with like-minded people and in the process allow some non-like-minded people to attend where is the harm?</p>
<p>I object far less to a college that requires all of its Trustrees to be Catholic or Presbyterian. That is an affirmation of a specific religious affiliation. In my opinion, the historical context of Davidson's by-law probably had a very different intent.</p>
<p>On the women's college issue, I am surprised that nobody has sued a women's college. I believe that several men's colleges (The Citadel and VMI) have been forced by the courts to accept men or lose government funding.</p>
<p>The point that seems to have been lost in that rather dismaying Charlotte Observer article and in some of the posts that have appeared here is that Davidson is trying, with some success, to become more diverse and does actively recruit and welcome students from varied regions and ethnic groups. Futhermore, although the move to open up its board of trustees may not strike quite the right chord among some readers and posters, it seems to me a step in the right direction, and a rather courageous one given the financial generosity John Belk has demonstrated in the past. To suggest even with tongue partially in cheek that Davidson is a glorified segregation academy whose students (or faculty) should forgo government aid is absurd. In a year when Princeton and other elite institutions have proudly issued press releases announcing classes that they hope will meet very specific goals in terms of minority enrollment, it seems pointless and somewhat hypocritical to suggest that most if not all schools don't have an eye on ethnic/religious numbers in one way or another. </p>
<p>Those who judge Davidson to be somehow intellectually or morally flawed and not quite a legitimate member of the educational elite because of its religious origins might also keep in mind that it is hardly the only excellent and respected school to have an ongoing religious affiliation--think of Georgetown and Notre Dame (Catholic). I seem to recall, too, that when my children applied in past years to a historically Quaker college that shall be nameless, there was a question on the application about the applicant's religious affiliation--as in "Do you attend Friends Meeting and if so where?" (Forgive the paraphrase, but that is basically what it asked.) Neither my children nor I found it offensive--it was just part of the school's identity, indeed a rather positive one that we associated with progressive social causes. Similarly, I believe that Davidson, like many other schools spoken highly of on these boards, is an educational community of real integrity and social conscience as well as academic excellence.</p>
<p>I agree. And I can't imagine why someone should object to an openly Presbyterian college being openly Christian in its governance - if it so chooses. </p>
<p>What exactly is the problem? (either way - Christian board of trustees or not).</p>