GroshLink

If you were an alum of William and Mary would you sign the http://www.savethewrencross.org/ petition and/or withhold money for the removal of the cross (note:  if you are a William and Mary alum did you sign the petition)?  Quite a fascinating news item with the cross returning under glass, noting it as a gift to the school with a unique Anglican heritage.  I found William & Mary’s Chapel at a Crossroad an excellent consideration of the situation.

Interestingly enough Pitt was a downtown Presbyterian log cabin college, what money can do in moving the campus to Oakland and the Cathedral of Learning.  The building of the large nondenominational (but clearly Christian influenced) Heinz Chapel came from the money of the founder of Heinz, an advocate for Methodism and the YMCA (note: his son a strong Presbyterian who attended Shadyside Presbyterian).  Pitt secularized over time, but due to its bailout several decades ago it is a public institution.  With the stained glass and neo-gothic architecture, the desacrilization is much more difficult than at Wm & Mary, it serves as the space for weddings, concerts, and various special events.  If you're the alum of a college with religious roots, where would you place your alma mater on a spectrum of embracing its heritage, acknowledging its heritage but moving in a new direction, covering up its heritage, or disowning its heritage?  Nothing like the scandal of the cross.