By Esteban Fernandez, Times West Virginian
BUCKHANNON — A couple of weeks ago, West Virginia Wesleyan College professor Emily Ziebarth attended what she characterized as a strange meeting.
The school’s administration, she said, told the gathered faculty and staff they would not be told who this year’s commencement speaker was.
“There was a strange sort of preemptive defense,” Ziebarth said. “The president ran through how he votes and all that, and then gave us the option between coming and not coming. If you weren’t comfortable with who was going to speak, you were welcome to not come. And that was the part that bothered me the most. I don’t like being given false dilemmas like that.”
The secrecy was for naught.
Two days before the graduation ceremony, it leaked online that Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., would be the commencement speaker. After a protest directed at Sen. Capito began gaining traction online, faculty received an email the night before the ceremony announcing the event had been moved inside the chapel. The school stated in the email it was due to unforeseen circumstances beyond their control.
