Friday, Nov. 15, the Committee for Contextualization of Campus Landmarks and Iconography at the College of William and Mary released its 2023-2024 Findings & Landscape Report, an annual document that updates the community on the historical context of the College’s campus. The committee comprises undergraduate students and a faculty affiliate, Dr. Robyn Schroeder, working under the direction of the Student Assembly.
The CCL&I was created in 2020 after the murder of George Floyd and serves as an aspect of the Student Assembly’s “The Plan,” according to the report’s Executive Summary. The organization was formed to alter campus culture and recognize the impact of Black and Indigenous people on the College and its formation. They update their standing research every year to provide the community with the most current information.
On their website, Committee leadership voiced how vital their work is in preserving memory during a time of suppression and erasure.
“Amidst an influx of the suppression, erasure, and denial of histories — important and truthful histories — we are reminded of how crucial memory is,” the CCL&I Heading Statement states.
CCL&I Lead Chair Camille Batts ’26 commented on how this annual report differs from those in the past.
“These annual reports truly place an emphasis on the inaction of the College. We see very little change in the campus’ landscape and who is truly represented within it — and most of the little change we see is due to the Vision 2026 efforts, not from intentional efforts to reconcile with the College’s harmful histories,” Batts said. “We also approached this report with our intentions — emphasizing that our criticisms and recommendations for the College come from places of love and care. We wouldn’t do this work if we didn’t care about the College and believe that it has the capacity for change and progress.”
The committee’s work found that currently 25.75% of buildings at the College are named after enslavers and 31.68% of buildings are named after recognized white supremacists. These numbers are estimated to decrease significantly in the next eight years with new construction and demolishing old buildings across campus through Vision 2026. Although changes are in the works, the Committee’s analysis shows that no changes have been made in active renaming of buildings that memorialize racists and enslavers. The new construction will bring the percentage down of buildings named after enslavers, but without the consideration of the implications of these buildings’ namesakes, the College’s diverse community cannot be accurately reflected.
Bemnet Legesse ’26, CCL&I’s Public Relations Chair gave her thoughts on the committee’s mission.
“I think the goal, as is the purpose of the committee, is to provide important historical context that is very easy to gloss over in campus tours or casual conversations on campus. I think the Landscape Report itself is an important way in which we provide this context because as we update and release it annually, likely with little to no change, we make a point about the lack of progress on our campus. It is also a more practical way for us to provide the campus with digestible information outside of the write-ups on our website,” Legesse said.
Batts also offered her vision for the report’s impact.
“Our goal is to continue the conversations. We don’t want people to stop thinking about the landscapes around them or to simply normalize these harmful figures being mythologized and put on literal & figurative pedestals. We also hope that, with the annual release of these reports, our recommendations will be considered and implemented on campus. These recommendations usually pertain to student involvement and say in decisions such as renaming buildings — largely calling for transparency in this and similar processes. Students should not only have a say in these decisions, but we also deserve to know how these processes work and when they are taking place,” Batts said.
In the Building Audit section of the landscape report, the Committee made it clear that their findings were not presented as a criticism of the College’s administration, but instead as an opportunity to reflect the truth behind the enabling of racist attitudes. They treat the report as a call to action, one that encourages students in cooperation with administrators to redefine the culture surrounding injustice at the College.
Legesse expressed excitement about the publication of the report in general.
“We put a lot of work into updating and reformatting the report — although not as much work as the first CCL&I board that created the first report — and it’s so great to see it making its rounds in all the student organizations that work in the same space,” Legesse said.
Batts provided her final thoughts on the report’s impact on campus culture.
“The reports are quite well received. I feel as though we take things that people either already know, assume, or don’t think twice about, and challenge those ideas. We push them to think about why those things are how they are, or why that building is named what it is. I’ve found that our statistics regarding buildings and monuments have been the most shocking — to myself and the community, as seeing many of the numbers laid out is both damning and rather hard to dispute,” Batts said.
She mentioned that the reports are peer-reviewed and appraised by a professor, so their findings are rooted in fact. The report repeatedly found buildings and statues that memorialized people who dedicated their lives to goals and projects that supported enslavement, white supremacy and colonialism. The Committee’s goal is to alert the campus community about the disconnect between the ideals these monuments support and the current campus perspectives on those same ideals.
