More than 650 people have signed on to an open letter questioning the decision made last month to remove retired Maj. Gen. Cedric Wins as superintendent of the Virginia Military Institute.
The board of visitors voted in late February to allow Wins’ contract to expire this summer. Wins, the institute’s first Black superintendent, was brought in to reform it following allegations of widespread racism at the Lexington school, which has about 1,500 students known as cadets.
More than 515 of the letter’s signatures belong to alumni. Every graduating class since 1972 is represented, and additional alumni date back to 1958. Five of the signers identified themselves as cadets from the class of 2025 or later.
The letter is posted on In Alma Mater’s Name, a new website that describes itself as “a nonpartisan, non-political community dedicated to preserving the values, traditions and excellence” of the state-run military school.
The letter, delivered by email to board president John Adams on March 7, asks the board to do four things: explain why Wins’ contract was not renewed, disclose how the decision was made and why it was not conducted publicly, share details of the board’s plans going forward, and commit to being transparent about leadership decisions at VMI.
“The open letter, which continues to gather support, underscores alumni concerns about governance, communication, conflicts of interest and the broader implications of Maj. Gen. Wins’ removal. Many signatories worry that the decision was politically motivated and not in the best interest of the Institute or its Corps of Cadets,” a press release Tuesday from In Alma Mater’s Name states.
The letter demands a response to the four requests by March 21.
Adams did not respond directly to an email asking whether he had acknowledged receipt of the letter or whether the full board planned to meet prior to the next scheduled meeting in May.
“The VMI board of visitors does not comment publicly on personnel matters,” VMI spokesperson Sherry Wallace, who was copied on the email, responded. “When the next steps in the transition process are finalized, the board will notify the VMI community and make a public announcement.”
The board of visitors voted 10-6 not to renew Wins’ contract on Feb. 28, following an hours-long closed meeting. No board members commented on their decision at the time of the vote.
The decision followed weeks of debate that suggested Wins was being used as a political pawn, either by conservative board members and legislators seeking to oust him or their liberal counterparts pulling for him to remain.
“My tenure will end because bias, emotion, and ideology rather than sound judgment swayed the board,” Wins said in a farewell memo released March 6. That memo also listed several achievements made during Wins’ time at the institute, including increasing enrollment and granting millions in student scholarships.
The decision to let Wins go was incongruous with the board’s previous actions, said Gene Scott, a VMI graduate and one of the organizers of the open letter. Wins had received good performance reviews, and the board had authorized bonuses to be paid for Wins’ performance, Scott said in an interview. “If there was a problem with performance, it should have come out in that discussion,” he said.
Scott served on the board of visitors from 2015 to 2023 and chaired the superintendent search committee to replace Gen. Binford Peay. Peay resigned in fall 2020 after allegations of widespread racism at VMI led to a state investigation of the culture at the school. Wins was formally appointed in 2021 after serving temporarily in the position.
Scott said the alumni who wrote the letter want to understand why the board didn’t renew Wins’ contract but aren’t optimistic that they’ll receive an answer. “Our goal was to understand why they made that decision, and was it appropriate?” he said.
Scott said the list of signers covers a “broad brush” of alumni concerned about the board’s actions, ranging from conservative to liberal. This institute has about 17,000 living alumni.
“I am a big believer in VMI,” he added later. “I don’t want to harm the institute. But we have to be transparent” about why Wins is being let go, Scott said. “If he failed, they need to tell us.”
Scott Jones, a 2012 graduate of VMI, signed the letter. Jones served as vice president of one of the college’s Washington, D.C., metro-area alumni chapters for more than three years. He now lives in the United Kingdom.
Jones said he approved of Wins’ efforts to remove some of the college’s Civil War-era culture and ideology, and he suspects that those achievements could have contributed to the board’s decision.
Jones said he also sent a letter of his own directly to the board of visitors and the VMI Alumni Association shortly after the decision to oust Wins.
Jones had a gift to VMI written into his will but said in his letter that he would be amending the will to revoke that gift. “I made it clear that I was ceasing all monetary contributions to VMI organizations now and in the future, and that I was amending my will to strike the gift my estate was to make,” he said.
For the year ending June 2024, VMI Alumni Agencies, the umbrella over the school’s fundraising organizations, had received bequests and other donation “intentions” of about $150 million.
The board of visitors has already begun its search for the next superintendent of VMI. In an email to faculty and staff dated March 11 obtained by Cardinal News, board members James Inman and Ernest Edgar introduced themselves as co-chairs of the search committee.
“Perhaps the most important responsibility delegated by law to the Board of Visitors is the oversight and selection of the Institute’s superintendent,” they wrote. They said the committee would include additional board of visitors members as well as “advisory members representing faculty and alumni.”
