Corporations, schools, athletics departments and many public-facing entities have filled social media and the Internet with messages of racial solidarity, togetherness, sadness, hope and empathy during the past week.
Some have been well-written and genuinely emphatic and some have been formulaic and seemingly only to match the general efforts of others in their competing spaces. A smaller percentage also added a course of action because, while it’s not nothing, black squares and 280 characters of words without any follow-up do little to make any sort of tangible impact to comfort or assist beyond the lifespan of a tweet.
Ole Miss chancellor Glenn Boyce’s message to the university community on Friday fits into the best of responses I’ve seen pertaining to this topic. In separate sections, Boyce recognized important areas that need to be addressed and also gave another potential glimpse into his tenure and how his actions may alleviate the No. 1 fear pertaining to his less-than-transparent appointment.
“I am struck with profound sadness for the recurring cycle of tragic and senseless deaths, for the African-American and other minority members of our university community who are fearful, anxious and frustrated by the lack of real and sustained change, and for towns and cities across America that are experiencing violence and chaos,” Boyce said in the letter. “I stand with you in declaring that hate, prejudice and racism do not have a place on our campus or in our society.”
"We all recognize that this University has a difficult history with these issues that oftentimes places us at the forefront of complex and emotional discussions. We will not let our past stop us from working to make a better present and future for everyone on this campus. We must all be active participants on the journey of seeking solutions and inspiring the healing process.
“This is a time for change. For me, that means moving the monument away from the center of our campus. That monument has divided this campus, and the process of its removal from the Circle is one I am committed to seeing through to completion. There is more to do, but this needs to happen.”
The above is a portion of the message, and Boyce effectively localized the national events to his constituents and students while acknowledging Ole Miss’ difficult place in conversations regarding race and how to effectively recognize the past and move forward simultaneously. It’s a complicated, nuanced dilemma that has been fumbled — in both directions — in many statements and actions previously under different leadership.
And in what has become a primary mission of Boyce’s tenure that began in October, he reiterated his support and steadfastness to move the Confederate monument from the middle of the Ole Miss campus to the Confederate cemetery behind Tad Smith Coliseum.
That’s a, well, monumental move on its face and one that the majority of Ole Miss students, faculty, staff and alumni support, but it’s also a critical endeavor to show that his leadership is independent of the Institutions of Higher Learning board of trustees, the body that pushed him through as chancellor during a clandestine search process that arguably violated protocol in its final weeks and days.
Boyce is a former IHL commissioner, and there has been the fear of cronyism since protests led to the cancellation of his introductory press conference. In full transparency, I have had the same fear as I spent more time in the fall than I’m willing to admit investigating the process and talking to people around it, as Boyce went from paid impartial consultant to rumored shadow candidate to forced-in frontrunner. This site published a look into that process, and I acknowledged his challenges on the day he was named chancellor.
The monument maneuvering gained him capital, as he guided the move through all necessary university channels and with the Mississippi Department of History and Archives. He’s pointed out multiple times the IHL has “exclusive authority” to move the monument at this point, not-so-subtlety pointing out he’s fulfilled the university’s necessary steps in this endeavor.
On January 16, The IHL pulled the vote from its January meeting agenda. Board member Tom Duff requested the tabling of the vote.
“(The board) would like to get a full report from the university on the progress made before implementing all of the recommendations they included in the contextualization report, things like replacing of the markers in the cemetery,” Duff said.
“Given this is an important matter, I would like to receive the full report before we vote on such, thus I will pull this item from the agenda today.”
Some believe Duff pulled the vote because it wasn’t a certainty to pass among the 12 board members, potentially setting off a state-wide firestorm. I have no idea if that’s accurate, but, no matter the reason, it wasn’t a rubber stamp. Boyce’s history with the IHL can be a positive because he understands how to navigate the odd nature of the Mississippi higher education arrangement, and some opposition to the board goes a long way in his quest to show his focus is solely on Ole Miss’ best interests and he’s an independent leader.
I called the latest chancellor search the most important Ole Miss leadership appointment in a generation, and that was prior to the COVID-19 pandemic and all the additional challenges that have to be overcome amid the uncertainty. Given that students and faculty haven't even been on campus in months, it’s hard to grade Boyce’s early tenure.
Moving forward, Ole Miss’ health relative to the schools it competes against for students and student-athletes and funding, and all the other ways colleges compete, will be the deciding factor in his success.
The challenges have never been more unique and those are in addition to the known issues of student recruitment, fundraising and strong, united communication that had slipped under Jeffrey Vitter’s time in the Lyceum.
Ole Miss appears to be on the path to having students on campus in the fall, a critical need for all schools but especially here. University leadership across the country is already turned up to Heisman mode given the current events, but in-person classes would somewhat provide a salve or at least help avoid potential budgetary disaster.
Boyce wasn’t particularly visible for students or faculty in his initial months, and that’s a valid negative, as is the concern that the political nature of his appointment may impact the ability to compete for accomplished faculty during his time in Oxford. He had attempts scheduled to remedy the former, but the halting of all in-person meetings stopped those plans.
The chancellor position, like all other high-level spots in business (and SEC schools are definitely businesses) is a scoreboard situation. Boyce will be defined by what he accomplishes, and he already has a pelt with the funding for the STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) building construction on the Ole Miss campus — a project previously sitting dormant because of a lack of available dollars. Duff and his brother, Jim, committed $26 million to the $160 million construction in February.
That was a key win for Boyce, and Friday was one, as well. The message, as much as any mass statement can, showed leadership and empathy and a pulse on local intricacies. And it was another piece to the puzzle of proving he’s not a puppet.
He didn’t start his tenure with a mandate, and internal communication is key in the near future, but so far he’s hitting the correct notes to turn talk about the appointment process into conversations regarding Ole Miss’ progress.
