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Colonial Echo
We are aware that the digital archive of the Colonial Echo, the student-produced yearbook at William & Mary, contains offensive content. As the university’s archive, we preserve W&M’s history while using the archives for teaching and research. We strive for transparency and access in making our collections available.
As part of the university’s ongoing efforts to understand our past, and at the president’s direction, William & Mary has undertaken a research project to review the Colonial Echo yearbooks, which date back to 1899. Swem Library initially conducted a cursory review of the yearbooks.
As staff from Special Collections delved deeper, the need for additional context became apparent, and the provost was to charge an expanded research group to explore the Colonial Echo and place the history of the yearbook within institutional and national contexts. The university wants to ensure this project is a valuable resource for historians, researchers and others exploring William & Mary’s history, culture and campus life.
That group was to begin its work in early 2020. However, the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic and the university’s response forced W&M to pause on many important projects, including the yearbook review. At the same time, the president charged a working group with the immediate task of developing principles on the naming and renaming of buildings, spaces and structures on campus. Once that work concludes, we return to the work of the yearbook review.
This is an important project for William & Mary, and it’s essential that it be thorough, in the spirit of other model research efforts at the university.
