The University of Richmond Board of Trustees this week took a first step to organizing a commission that would “establish principles on renaming” buildings at the private, 4,000-student school.

The board launched its new effort a week after dumping a previous plan to keep the building names of two historic white individuals who supported slavery and racial segregation. The board decided to re-evaluate its decision following backlash from students, faculty, staff and alumni over the plan to keep the names.

The board’s latest move came Monday, the same day the UR faculty overwhelmingly approved a resolution of “no confidence” in Paul Queally, the board’s rector, after his meetings with members of the university community appeared to further inflame the issue.

Mr. Queally was described as dictatorial and insensitive by opponents of the names, though trustees who were present at the meetings disputed such claims as inaccurate and misleading.

As reported Monday, 306 members of the faculty voted for the no-confidence resolution that calls on Mr. Queally to quit as rector and resign from the board. Forty-six faculty members either opposed the resolution or abstained from voting. The total pool of 352 participants represented 82 percent of the 428 eligible voters, the Free Press was informed.

“Nearly 100 percent of us agree the Board of Trustees and our rector have violated our trust and confidence in their recent decision- making imposed on our community from the tyranny of their minority judgment,” Dr. Mari L. Mitford, a professor of rhetoric and women, gender and sexuality studies, said before the vote. The campus buildings in question are named for the Rev. Robert Ryland, the school’s slave-owning and Confederate-supporting first president, and Douglas Southall Freeman, an alumnus, longtime rector, historian and advocate of white supremacy as a newspaper editor and radio commentator.

Without commenting on the vote, the Board of Trustees announced that two of its members have been tasked to start creating the commission “that will be inclusive and will ensure a fresh start with respect to renaming decisions.”

The two board members are Dr. S. Georgia Nugent, president of Illinois Wesleyan University, and Dr. John A. Roush, president emeritus of Centre College in Kentucky. The two members, in consultation with UR’s current president, Dr. Ronald A. Crutcher, and senior university leadership, are to provide to the board a proposal on the commission’s membership and the process it would follow, according to the board’s statement.

Former UR President Edward L. “Ed” Ayers and Dr. Julian M. Hayter, an UR associate professor of leadership studies, are to serve as advisers in formulating the recommendation.

The board did not announce a timetable for receiving the recommendations or for creating the commission, except to state “the planning work will be conducted expeditiously.”

The board also laid out some expectations for the commission, including that members would be drawn both from UR and from outside the campus and that the commission would engage “in substantive and inclusive conversations and provide a range of opportunities for faculty, staff, students and alumni to share their views.”

It is unclear whether the board’s action, which some see as a delay tactic, will work for students and faculty who have demanded the names be removed or alumni supporters who have withheld contributions.