Maeve Bauer, Spectrum Editor
Catherine Colombo, Contributing Writer
Since its inception in 1968, VCU has seen the work of student activists, journalists and free thinkers shape campus culture.
The VCU Libraries Special Collections and Archives department created an exhibition, “Voices of Change: Student Advocacy and Action from the Archives,” that delves into the very student movements that have made the “uncommon,” urban campus what it is today.
Special Collections held a panel last Thursday with four VCU alums who discussed their time at VCU and the different protests they were involved in. Panelists included Dale Brumfield, IBé Bulinda Hereford Crawley, Krissi Vandenberg and C. A. P. Ward. It was moderated by interdisciplinary studies director Vineeta Singh.
The four panelists studied at VCU at different times. Together, their words strung together an overall picture of student movements from the 1970s to the modern day. Many of them cited VCU as a second home — and they all held similar beliefs of building and relying on community.
“That’s where voice starts,” Crawley said. “People actively talking is where we make change.”
The exhibition was created in 2025 as a way to highlight movements throughout the years that have created an overall net positive to alums, in their time at VCU and after, as well as the university itself, according to university archivist Ruth Cody.
“We wanted to talk about the differences that the students made in the university itself and also the difference that the ability to do activism on campus made in students’ lives, not just while they were in college, but also when they went on [to] their future careers,” Cody said.
Former CT editor on clashes with administrators and ‘Dickie Disgusting’
Brumfield — one of the panelists — was the production manager for The CT from 1978 to 1981. He even returned to the paper in 2013 as a contributing writer during his time as a graduate student.
The CT has gone through many changes both before and after Brumfield’s time, he said.
The paper started with a traditional format, but during Brumfield’s time — full of economic uncertainty and punk ideals — it was a news magazine. It then switched back to the traditional layout during the Reagan era and has been the same since.
“The look of the paper, the feel of the paper really kind of reflected a product of its time,” Brumfield said.
Brumfield also attributes the layout to the security it provides readers. As the internet took off, readers preferred something easily recognizable, Brumfield said.
The CT received a lot of pushback from administrators while Brumfield was on staff — when the paper shifted its focus from student life to the overall Richmond experience. It was a way to meet a niche that was not being hit by other publications in the city at the time, Brumfield said.
“They weren’t reporting on the emerging punk rock movement or the art movement or all these things that were going on at the time,” Brumfield said. “The student paper should look at its community and see what’s missing, and respond to that and fill that void.”
That did not bode well with VCU, as administrators and the student government were trying to create a professional image as a fresh university.
According to Brumfield, the university’s president at the time, Edmund Ackell, threatened to cut funding to The CT if it did not go back to solely reporting about more wholesome student life.
One particularly controversial moment saw The CT publish an interview with the punk musician Dickie Disgusting, with a cover that read, “I’m nasty and they don’t like it.”
Mr. Disgusting told The CT how he had made as much as $700 a night by pimping himself out to middle-aged women, according to a Style Weekly article by former CT editor Rich Griset.
He told staffer Bill Pahnelas “I have a half-inch cock — but I’ve got an 11-inch tongue.”
Ackell wrote The CT and said that the article was a disservice to VCU. It made the president question VCU’s affiliation with the paper.
Queer, Black cartoonist on student rights, protest
The voice on the panel representing the newer generation was Ward, a queer, Black cartoonist and illustrator.
Ward actively participated in protests, especially regarding misconduct on the treatment of students and faculty.
“There was an incident where Caitlin Cherry, who was working as a visiting lecturer at the time, had campus security called on her. Students were very concerned, as that was a Black woman teaching at the institution, [who had] the institution acting against her,” Ward said.
Ward explained how the incident led to the broadening of different topics and issues discussed on campus.
Ward sees the actions of the current VCU administration as shameful, with regards to how they have been pushing back on student protesters — specifically the 2024 pro-Palestine encampment in which police deployed chemical irritants and arrested 13 demonstrators. They later modified the rules on where students can gather on campus.
“It genuinely feels like they have not had any textual understanding of the First Amendment and that they do not respect their students as adults,” Ward said. “It’s an urban campus and regardless of whether you’re arresting students or people who are participating in the protest, that doesn’t give them the right to set these boundaries on the entire city of Richmond.”
“Voices of Change: Student Advocacy and Action from the Archives,” is open on the fourth floor of James Branch Cabell Library in the Special Collections section. It is expected to remain open until 2028.