FAQs

Yes. University Chapel continues to host important annual campus events including the President’s welcome to new students, the Executive Committee’s Honor Orientation, the President’s address on Parents’ Weekend, and the Institute for Honor, as well as visiting speakers.

Yes, the statue chamber is open to the public. The partition acts as a visual separation between the statue chamber and the auditorium while allowing for freedom of movement between them.

As the Board of Trustees noted in its September 2022 message to the community, its decisions were guided by four key, overarching objectives:  helping all students, faculty, and staff feel welcome, included, and able to thrive on our campus; recognizing George Washington and Robert E. Lee for their important contributions to the institution; reaffirming the university’s rejection of Confederate ideology; and presenting the University’s entire history fully and honestly. 

The chapel and the annex were conceived and built as two separate spaces with two separate purposes. The original 1868 chapel structure was envisioned by then-President Lee as a gathering place for the college community. The 1883 annex, including the Valentine statue of Lee, was conceived by members of the Lee Memorial Association, in consultation with Lee’s widow, as a memorial to the former Confederate commander after his death and features him in his Confederate uniform. Originally known as “College Chapel,” after Lee’s death the building was variously referred to as “University Chapel,” “Lee Memorial Chapel,” “Memorial Chapel,” and simply “Chapel” until 1918, when the Board of Trustees formally adopted the name “Lee Memorial Chapel.” The Board’s plan restores the building to its original name and recreates two separate but adjoined and publicly accessible spaces: one for university events and the other for the study of history.

The design of the partition that separates the auditorium from the statue chamber was inspired by the original design of the College Chapel. The original chapel included a large three-panel leaded glass window, flanked by two narrower ones, that served as decorative elements on the stage. These windows were removed when the annex was added in 1883. As it was impossible to recreate the window design accurately without the original windows, the new design is intended to evoke the original design while providing a visual separation between the two spaces.

No. The university worked with federal and state agencies to ensure that the architectural modifications would not affect the chapel’s National Historic Landmark status. 

No. The museum consists of several galleries (Chapel Galleries) on the upper and lower levels of University Chapel. These galleries – which include the statue chamber, the “Setting the Stage” exhibit, Lee’s office, and the Lee Family crypt – remain open to the public.

Four portraits hung in the chapel auditorium from 1963 – 2021. All have been returned to display on campus:

• The Charles Willson Peale portrait of George Washington as a Colonel in the Virginia Regiment is on display in a new exhibit in our Reeves Museum.  This portrait was prominently featured in exhibitions at Mount Vernon from 2018-2023.
• The 1903 Theodore Pine portrait of Robert E. Lee and the 1796 Gilbert Stuart portrait of George Washington are on display in the “Setting the Stage” exhibit in the galleries on the lower level of University Chapel.
• The 1866 portrait of Robert E. Lee by J. Reid, which hung in the auditorium alongside the Stuart portrait of Washington from 2018-2020, is on display in Lee House.

In addition to the name of the institution, George Washington’s contributions are acknowledged in the name of Washington Hall, the statue atop that building, the gallery in its lobby, and on the university’s Honored Benefactors Wall. A contemporary copy by William Winstanley of Gilbert Stuart’s 1796 full-length portrait of Washington (Lansdowne version) hangs in Leyburn Library. Robert E. Lee’s contributions are acknowledged in the president’s home, which was built for Robert E. Lee when he was president of Washington College and continues to bear the name “Lee House,” and in the Chapel Galleries, where Lee’s memorial statue, former office and family crypt remain open to the public. Portraits and busts of both men are also included in the “Setting the Stage” exhibit in the Chapel Galleries.

As part of the Board of Trustees’ directives to restore the University Chapel auditorium to a simple, unadorned design, several plaques on campus have been updated or relocated. All of them have been preserved.

Most of the plaques, including the plaque dedicated to the Liberty Hall Volunteers that once hung in the entry to the chapel, will be moved to galleries within the Chapel itself or to the new history museum, where they can be displayed with more historical context.  Three plaques, two honoring World War I veterans and one honoring a Vietnam War veteran, have been moved to the Memorial Gate at the Jefferson Street entrance to campus, where they are displayed with other plaques honoring U.S. veterans.

Two plaques related to Lee’s presidency were moved from Payne Hall, and two plaques dedicated by the United Daughters of the Confederacy to commemorate Lee’s horse Traveller were also moved. All four plaques will be installed in new exhibits. Traveller’s remains were untouched, and a new grave marker signifying the horse’s lifespan (1857-1871) – in keeping with the style of the grave markers in the Lee Family crypt – was installed at the same location.

The interpretive marker relating Traveller’s history at the gravesite was updated, and a nearby plaque dedicated to Anne Wilson, former first lady of W&L, was updated and moved to a new location outside of the Lee House gardens in consultation with the Wilson family.

The Traveller plaque that was relocated from the Lee House garage for inclusion in a future exhibit was replaced with a new plaque consistent with the style of other plaques on campus.

No.

With the addition of the new exhibits in the Chapel Galleries and the new Museum of Institutional History, the Board will have fulfilled all of the commitments related to campus buildings, symbols and practices that it made to the Washington and Lee community in June 2021.

The academic curriculum is the purview of W&L’s faculty. There are already a number of courses on campus that focus on or incorporate various aspects of W&L’s history.

Upon the recommendation of the Working Group on the History of African Americans at W&L, the university erected a historical marker on campus in 2016 recognizing the enslaved individuals owned by Washington College until the mid-1800s.  The university is currently engaged in historical and genealogical research on African Americans, both enslaved and free, who labored on campus over the course of its history.