Watjen Urges Change In Appointment Process
The Virginia Military Institute continues to face scrutiny over its decision to remove Superintendent Cedric Wins, as a recently resigned board member has now gone public with a pointed critique of the board’s direction and governance.
Tom Watjen, a former president of the VMI board of visitors and one of six members who voted to renew Wins’ contract, released a public statement Monday explaining his March 3 resignation, which was submitted just days after the vote.
In the statement, Watjen defends Wins’ leadership, voices concern about the increasing politicization of board appointments, and warns that recent decisions have undermined trust in the Institute’s leadership.
“Neither VMI nor its current superintendent deserved to be put in this position,” Watjen wrote. “Superintendent MG Wins has provided strong leadership during a very important and difficult time for the school.”
The statement goes on to highlight two “troubling issues”: one, that the controversy resulting from the board’s decision has resulted in the rekindling of “an age old debate about VMI’s future/relevancy,” which Watjen sees as a mistake; and two, the politicization of the board’s appointment and reappointment process.
“The result at VMI is a board that today in my opinion lacks the broad experience, continuity, and diversity of ideology, gender, race, political affiliation ... etc., so important to making well-informed decisions,” Watjen’s statement explains. “I also believe that the politicization of the process energizes those outside the board room to use VMI to promote personal and/or political agendas.”
Watjen’s comments arrive at a critical moment for VMI, as the board of visitors has not explained, in response to public inquiries, why it voted 10-6 in a closed-door session on Feb. 28 not to renew Wins’ contract. Board President John Adams and other members have declined to comment, and the school has only begun its process of selecting a new superintendent.
Meanwhile, public pressure has intensified. A petition organized by the alumni group In Alma Mater’s Name gathered more than 1,000 signatures on an open letter demanding answers and transparency from the board. The group originally posed four specific questions related to the vote and asked for a response by March 21. Instead of responding, the board issued a campus-wide memo stating it was “not authorized to discuss personnel matters.”
In a new letter released on March 21, the group called the board’s reply “insufficient” and accused its members of failing to uphold VMI’s core values, including integrity, service, and transparency.
“The Board has chosen not to respond directly,” the letter states, “nor provided any rationale for this decision … Their secrecy, conduct, and silence is unacceptable and unbecoming of a governing board tasked with overseeing a state-funded institution of higher learning.”
While current board members have remained silent, Wins himself issued a forceful response earlier in March, calling the vote “a partisan choice” and warning that VMI risks returning to “an obsessive focus on our distant past” rather than preparing future leaders for a changing world. He is expected to serve through the end of his current contract, which runs through June 30, 2025.
The board has formed a search committee to identify Wins’ replacement. This committee met on March 20, and the 37-minute virtual meeting, which was live-streamed, can be viewed at https://www. vmi.edu/about/governance/ board-of-visitors/upcomingmeetings.
The full text of Tom Watjen’s statement appears in the sidebar.
