Photo: Julia Rendleman Ronald Crutcher’s Racial Reckoning
Katherine Mangan, The Chronicle of Higher Education
Ronald A. Crutcher is acutely aware that his presence as the first Black president of the University of Richmond is a sign of progress. When he graduated from high school in 1965, his race barred him from even enrolling at the campus he now leads, an institution sprawled across 350 acres of a former plantation in what was once the capital of the Confederacy.
As he prepares to step down from his post as president next summer, Crutcher says he’s more convinced than ever of the importance of bringing people together across ideological divides to discuss some of the most deeply polarizing issues of the day. But certain events have repeatedly tested his optimism that the result will be mutual understanding. |