EQB Monument: A Monument Commemorating the Motto of the University of the South
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Sculptural Memorial
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EQB Monument: A Monument Commemorating the Motto of the University of the South
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The leadership of the University of the South removed the bronze sculptural features of the Confederate Gen. Edmund Kirby-Smith Memorial several weeks after the violence associated with the "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017, and a request by Kirby-Smith descendants. Once the features of the original memorial were transferred to a new memorial in the University Cemetery, the leadership appointed a task force to redesign the use of the original plinth. That new design, the EQB Monument, was unveiled as part of the inaugural observance of "Foundation Day," on September 23, 2018. This commemorative event placed new focus on Sewanee's "Second Founding" after the Civil War, as opposed to its "First" founding in October 1860.
The letters "EQB" are short for Ecce Quam Bonum, Sewanee's motto from the 133rd Psalm in the Old Testament, and now translated on Sewanee's campus as follows: "Behold how good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity.”
At the dedication of the EQB Monument, Sewanee's Vice-Chancellor John McCardell explained its importance: “For those who we love and who love this University, all of us will recommit ourselves to that simple but profound declaration, and with a humility that comes from an awareness and acknowledgment of our own shortcomings. Strive to sustain here and to carry beyond our gates that spirit, Ecce quam bonum.”
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Bronze lettering on plaque on the original plinth (six feet tall) of the Kirby-Smith Memorial, front and back, made of local sandstone atop a stone apron and in front of a semi-circular sandstone wall.
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FRONT:
EQB
Ecce Quam bonum
Behold how good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity!
Psalm 133:1
The University Motto
1868 * 2018
BACK:
1857
On July 4, a group of bishops, clergy, and laymen, nearly all of them slaveholders, gathered with more than 400 others on Lookout Mountain to share their vision for a great Episcopal university. While serving the particular needs of a region built on the institution of slavery, this university would, in founding Bishop James H. Otey's words, 'furnish to this great Republic the truest men, the truest Christians, and the truest patriots, an enlightened and virtuous class of citizens.
1866
After a Civil War whose casualties included the University's endowment, most of its founders, and the institution of slavery, Bishop Charles Quintard of Tennessee began to reimagine the Southern university planned nine years earlier. On March 22, not far from this spot, he and a small gathering of well-wishers, including two priest, several workmen, and a University trustee, erected a simple wooden cross to announce the refounding of the University of the South.
1868
Racing to meet the deadline imposed by the Sewanee Mining Company, whose 1858 gift of land had been conditional on the University opening within ten years, Bishop Quintard raised the funds necessary to open the doors at last. A convocation ceremony on September 18, attended by four faculty and nine students, rededicated the University of the south to the best of its original purposes, 'the cultivation of true religion, learning, and virtue.'
2018
This monument, commemorating the founding, the refounding, and the opening of the University, has been raised to inspire Sewanee's sons and daughters to live by the ideals of the University's motto, Ecce Quam Bonum. Dedicated 150 years after the matriculation of those first nine students, it occupies what was once the site of a memorial to Edmund Kirby Smith, a Confederate general and Sewanee professor. It is thus a fitting reminder to the Sewanee community—a more diverse and inclusive one than any of the founders could have envisioned—to carry on its work of imagining and reimagining a great university. It calls us to ensure that Sewanee continues to grow into a stronger and truer version of itself, meanwhile serving the South, the nation, and the world.
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September 23, 2018
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