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Bethany College removes Sen. Robert C. Byrd’s name from health center

Photos by Scott McCloskey U.S. Sen. Robert C. Byrd commonly reflects on his West Virginia upbringing and heritage as he proudly displays a large photograph of a coal field in Raliegh County in southern West Virginia which he keeps in front of him on his desk in his office which is located in the United States Capitol Building.

Bethany College on Wednesday removed the name of the late U.S. Sen. Robert C. Byrd from its student health center, saying the college can no longer allow the Byrd name to “represent how we lead in today’s world.”

Byrd, a U.S. senator who represented West Virginia for more than 50 years, died in 2010. He was a member of the Ku Klux Klan in the early 1940s but later in his career denounced the organization.

Bethany College President Tamara Rodenberg, in a written statement, said this is a chance for the college to move into a “new shared future.”

Rev. Dr. Tamara Rodenberg

“And so from this point forward, a new chapter begins on our campus, one informed by more diverse voices, one predicated on mutual respect and human value, and one that aims to unite through words, actions and hope,” Rodenberg wrote.

“Our lives are marked by decisions, by actions, and by grace, and today we embrace all three in a tangible, visible way at our beloved Bethany College.”

The statement said the college recognized in the past few weeks that Byrd’s name attached to the health center “created divisiveness and pain for members of Bethany community, both past and present.”

“While this action is clearly the right thing to do, we acknowledge that the Byrd name is also synonymous with a ‘capacity to change, a capacity to learn, a capacity to listen, a capacity to be made more perfect,’ as President Barack Obama shared in Senator Byrd’s 2010 eulogy. These attributes about Senator Byrd’s legacy, however, are the same ones that lead us to remove a symbol of the past, and open our hearts and minds to equality, justice and equity.

“May our action today be met with grace, and may it reaffirm the #ONEBethany spirit that has brought generations of students and alumni to our gates so that they, like Senator Byrd acknowledged in his own life, may see that change starts from within.”

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