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Rita Thompson never thought she'd cause an uproar by becoming Mary Washington College's assistant dean of admissions.
But a previous job as national spokeswoman for Concerned Women for America, a conservative Christian women's group that actively opposes such things as abortion, pornography and gay rights, recently has raised some professors' eyebrows and sparked a flurry of e-mails.
"It was definitely a surprise to me," said Thompson, a former member of MWC's board of visitors who worked in admissions at the Georgetown University Law Center for seven years.
"They don't know who I am because I'm so new. Nobody even called to ask, 'What is your philosophy?'"
Stephen Watkins, associate professor of English, linguistics and speech at MWC, noticed her role with Concerned Women for America when college officials sent a campuswide e-mail saying she'd been hired.
"I checked their Web site, which confirmed what I already knew--which is that they are aggressively anti-gay and take strong, fundamentalist positions on issues," he said.
Watkins said that was worrisome because Thompson had been the public face of a group with views that run counter to the college's community values statement.
The document--which is posted in every classroom and on the Internet at www.mwc.edu/pres/mission/values.htm--states that MWC refuses to tolerate discrimination based on, among other things, sexual orientation.
He sent a mass e-mail to let his colleagues know of Thompson's role in Concerned Women for America and said they could check out its views on its Web site, www.cwfa.org.
About 30 people e-mailed Watkins back. Some expressed shock that Thompson had been hired to recruit students for MWC; others said she was entitled to her opinions, he said.
Professors Stephen J. Farnsworth and Christopher Kilmartin also sent campuswide e-mails expressing similar concerns.
"There's a difference between privately held opinions and public statements," Kilmartin, a psychology professor who does sexual harassment training on campus, said yesterday. "This person was a spokesperson for an organization that some people consider a hate group."
Thompson--whose focus will be on recruiting athletes, minorities and foreign students--responded to the e-mails by saying she does not personally support everything Concerned Women for America stands for.
"I wrote back and said, 'We want to know which ones, because you're going to be making public statements on behalf of us,'" said Kilmartin.
He said he hasn't received a reply to his request. But Thompson has met with Watkins and the presidents of two organizations on campus, the Black Students Association and People for the Rights of Individuals of Sexual Minorities, or PRISM.
"I think she's doing the right thing. She's seeking out people to reassure them," said Watkins, who said he told Thompson over lunch that she'd been naïve to think people wouldn't question her former spokeswoman role.
"She's taken great pains to disassociate herself from some views of the organization," he said. "I wish her well."
Thompson said she applied for the admissions job at Mary Washington after seeing it listed on the college's Web site. She was in the habit of checking it because two of her children attend MWC.
Thompson was one of about 50 applicants, and the interviewing process was probably "the most intense" she'd ever undergone, she said.
The search committee, headed by MWC Dean of Undergraduate Admissions Jenifer L. Blair, asked her about her public relations role at Concerned Women for America and whether she could support the college's statement of community values. "She said she would support it," Blair said.
Martin Wilder Jr., vice president for enrollment, admissions and financial aid, said, "I'm confident she can do an excellent job--and will do so."
Thompson said yesterday that she wouldn't have accepted the job if it wasn't a good fit.
"I would not take a position where I thought I was compromising myself as a person," she said. "That would make me inefficient as an admissions officer."
She said the e-mails have had a plus side--people on campus know who she is even though she's been on campus a few weeks only. Many have sent e-mails urging her not to judge the entire college community by the reactions of a few, she said.
"It's been very uplifting for my morale spiritually," she said. "It's made me tolerant of those who may not be tolerant of me."