The resignation of Winthrop President Dan Mahony and the subsequent hiring of Interim President George Hynd has been a hot topic on Winthrop University’s campus lately and senior political science major Nathan Crunkilton chose to step up and make his voice heard.
Crunkilton started an online petition on change.org calling for the “immediate Resignation of each member of the Winthrop University Board of Trustees, and upon refusal, move for a Vote of No Confidence upon the Winthrop University Board of Trustees.
The petition — which was started last week — quickly gained traction within the Winthrop community and has garnered over 1,500 signatures at the time of the writing of this article. Crunkilton said that the petition had received 1,000 signatures within the first two days of it being posted.
In an interview with The Johnsonian, he said that the initial motivation behind starting the petition came from his experiences as holding leadership roles within various organizations on campus as well as what he has learned from the courses in his major.
“When it comes to social activism and social justice, after seeing what [Board of Trustees member] Jane LaRoche had to say, I just kind of felt compelled to speak out as a general student and say ‘we’re not being represented, neither is faculty, neither is staff,’” Crunkilton said.
He said that most of the response he has received has been positive although some people have been skeptical, at least initially.
“It’s been overwhelming, the amount of support and the amount of people that recognize that this is an issue [in] Winthrop’s community,” Crunkilton said. “As far as backlash, there’s been a lot of people that kind of questioned my motives with it [but] at the end of the day, I’m just fighting for a voice for the students, faculty and staff here.”
While the page for online petition calls for the resignation of the board and a possible vote of no confidence to follow, there is more to it than that. Crunkilton said that the “entire reason” he started the petition “is to open a conversation. The board of trustees needs to recognize that we as students [and] the faculty here, while we are represented on the board of trustees, we deserve to have a vote, too.”
He said that he had been following the news surrounding Mahony’s departure but that following the events that took place during the board of trustees meeting on Jan. 31, he felt that it was time to take a stand.
“After seeing what Jane LaRoche had to say, I [said] ‘alright, that’s enough, I need to speak out and say something about it,’” Crunkilton said. “So I definitely had recognized what was happening, but after that happened, and [LaRoche] felt compelled to speak, I felt like I had to come forward and say something for the student body myself as well.”
Crunkilton said that he is planning to hold tabling events this week to speak with students to further raise awareness about the petition.
Graphic: Shaniah Garrick/ The Johnsonian
