Brian Wilson, The Daily News Journal, November 12, 2015
MURFREESBORO — Members of the task force charged with recommending whether to change or retain the name of Forrest Hall at Middle Tennessee State University pledged during their first meeting on Thursday to have an open and public deliberation process.
Fifteen people, including state Sen. Bill Ketron and State Historian Carroll Van West, will serve as members of the task force that will consider whether to change the name of MTSU’s Forrest Hall.
The committee will have multiple public-input sessions, including one in early December before the full board begins to consider what decisions to make about the campus building named after Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, said Derek Frisby, task force chairman and global studies professor.
MTSU President Sidney McPhee tasked the panel to recommend by April 2016 whether to change the name of Forrest Hall, retain the name “with added historical perspective” or keep the name as is at the building that houses the school’s ROTC program.
After a mass shooting at a historically black church in South Carolina in June 2015 sparked a debate about the place of Confederate symbols, McPhee announced he would engage the university community about whether the ROTC building should remain as Forrest Hall.
“As I look around the table today, I am pleased to see we have a broad range of stakeholders that are willing to engage in this discussion,” McPhee said in front of a packed committee meeting at the Student Union Building on Thursday. “My hope for this group was to have a representation from our student body, from our faculty, from our community representatives. I’m confident that such a broad range of perspectives will produce a thoughtful recommendation.”
Derek Frisby (Photo: MTSU)
While McPhee will decide whether to accept or deny the recommendation, Frisby encouraged the 15 voting members of the committee to think outside of the box and come up with a solution that could receive universal support on a local and state level.
“Few people may remember the decision, but all will remember the process in which this decision is made,” Frisby said.
If a recommendation to rename Forrest Hall is adopted, the Tennessee Board of Regents would have to approve the decision. The Tennessee Historical Commission would also have to approve the name change because of a state law passed in 2013, Frisby said.
Members of the task force did not object to the suggestion of having public-input meetings on and off MTSU’s campus, so students and community members could voice their thoughts about the issue.
“To me this is a great teaching opportunity,” said history professor Mark Doyle, one of the committee members. “This is a university. We should be talking about these things.”
Frisby said he would work to set the first public-input meeting either on Dec. 2 or 3 at MTSU and look into holding additional meetings when students return to campus in January. An additional session could be held for specific groups to provide their input.
After the input meetings, Frisby suggested the committee reconvene and begin deliberating on the recommendation it would make to McPhee. All of those meetings would continue to be open to the public, he said.
The name of the ROTC building has drawn off-and-on controversy at the university in the decades since its dedication in 1958. While critics denounced Forrest for his troops’ role in the Fort Pillow massacre and his election as an early grand wizard of the Klu Klux Klan, supporters say the Confederate general was an innovative tactician who denounced the KKK before his death.
Forrest was known locally for leading troops who saved Confederate troops from likely death in the Rutherford County Courthouse during the Civil War.
A bronze medallion of Forrest was removed from Keathley University Center in 1989, university officials said. Students petitioned to have the Forrest Hall name changed in 2006 and 2007, but the name remained as student groups indicated a change wasn’t a priority for them.
Because of the region’s Civil War history and the prior debate over the Forrest’s place on campus, Frisby said the recommendation would not completely solve the issues tied to the building’s names.
“I don’t think any of us believe that what we do will solve this entirely,” Frisby said.
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