News Flash: Director of Maier Museum Resigns

A just-issued press release, Preserve Educational Choice, an organization opposed to the recent conversion of Randolph College from an all-women's institution to a coeducational one, announced the resignation of Karol Lawson, the director of the college's Maier Museum, a move triggered by the removal of four works from the museum for an auction disposal intended to beef up the college's general endowment.

In its press release, PEC asserts:

Randolph College---with a student body of only 665 students---has an endowment of $153 million. This is an endowment that is the envy of its peers, and larger than many colleges twice its size.... So why does Randolph College keep crying poor? Because it is trying to mask the real problem: out-of-control spending and financial mismanagement, neither of which will be fixed by selling pieces from the art collection....

The College's relationship to the Lynchburg community will be irreparably harmed [by the art disposals], particularly with the sale of George Bellows' "Men of the Docks." The Maier Museum of Art is a community treasure, and a major cultural attraction in central Virginia.