Category Archives: Board of Visitors

Alderman Name Change Contested at Board Meeting

Posted on February 29, 2024 by | 9 comments

by James A. Bacon

The University of Virginia Board of Visitors took up the controversial issue Thursday of renaming the Alderman Library to the Edgar Shannon Library. Two board members expressed sharp objections to name change, but the Building & Grounds Committee voted to advance a resolution authorizing the change to the full board, which will take up the issue Friday.

Foes of the renaming called into question the process by which the Naming & Memorials Committee reached its decision to jettison the name of Edwin Alderman, UVA’s first president and architect of UVA’s transformation in the early 1900s into a modern university. The name of Edgar Shannon, who led the University through integration and the Vietnam War, has been suggested in Alderman’s place.

Paul C. Harris was the first board member to attack the recommendation. He criticized proponents of the name change for their confidence in their moral rectitude and their “unforgiving culture.” He was disappointed, Harris said, that the committee members spent so much time passing judgment on a historical figure so central to UVA’s history without acknowledging his transformative contributions.

Foes of the name change have assailed Alderman, who served between 1904 and 1931, for perpetuating segregation and supporting the eugenics movement. Under the proposal put before the Board, Alderman’s name would be removed from the building but the original dedication plaque crediting his role would remain in place. Continue reading →

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Posted in Board of Visitors

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Scott Surovell’s End Run Around Jason Miyares

Posted on February 2, 2024 by | 5 comments

Sen. Scott Surovell

by James A. Bacon

The battle for control of higher-ed institutions in Virginia is boiling over into the state legislature. Senator Scott Surovell, D-Mount Vernon, has submitted a bill, SB 506, that would allow Virginia’s public universities to hire their own legal counsel in place of lawyers answering to the Attorney General.

The bill would give governing boards of every institution authority over the hiring of “outside legal counsel, the oversight and management of any legal counsel, and the appointment of a general counsel to serve as the chief legal officer of the institution.”

Attorney General Jason Miyares

Public universities are classified as state agencies. Like other state agencies, their legal interests are represented by counsel that reports to the Office of Attorney General.

The underlying political conflict is who controls Virginia’s colleges and universities. The issue surfaced last year when former Bowdoin University President Clayton Rose addressed the University of Virginia’s Board of Visitors and suggested that board members owe their primary loyalty to the institution, not their personal agendas. He received pushback from two board members appointed by Governor Glenn Youngkin who argued that the duty of board members is to represent the interests of the Commonwealth of Virginia, not the institution itself. Continue reading →

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Posted in Board of Visitors, Governance

Rubber Stamp Governance

Posted on December 20, 2023 by | 9 comments

by James A. Bacon

Earlier this month the Jefferson Council noted that the Board of Visitors had virtually no input into decision-making for setting the University of Virginia’s tuition & fees in 2025 and 2026. The three-month process, orchestrated by senior administrators, presented a carefully curated set of statistics and allowed no opportunity for board members to engage in substantive discussion.

Based on my observation of the public meetings I attended, it struck me that Board oversight was a sham, and that the Board’s vote in December to approve 3.0% tuition increases rubber-stamped a decision made by the Ryan administration. But I muted my conclusions in writing because I still had questions about how the process worked.

I submitted several questions to Chief Communications Officer Brian Coy. The administration’s response removes any lingering doubts. Continue reading →

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Posted in Board of Visitors, Tuition, affordability, scholarships

UVa Eyes Potential Cost Savings

Posted on December 10, 2023 by | 2 comments


by James A. Bacon

The Ryan administration defended its record of cost cutting Friday during a presentation to the Board of Visitors and pointed to an ongoing Operational Efficiency and Effectiveness Study as a source of savings in the future.

The study, which commenced in September, has focused on five objectives, Chief Operating Officer J.J. Davis told the Board:

  •  Maximize scalability and efficiency
  • Unlock the power of technology
  • Reduce manual work
  • Minimize duplication
  • Align activities to mission

So far, said Davis, three major themes have emerged: people and organization; optimization and scale; and technology as an enabler. Over the next six months, in the words of her presentation slide deck, the study will conduct a “deeper examination of opportunities warranting further analysis.” She will report back to the Board in June. Continue reading →

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Posted in Board of Visitors, Finances, Restructuring

Kalven Principles for UVa?

Posted on December 10, 2023 by | 18 comments

by James A. Bacon

Five years ago, University of Virginia President Jim Ryan took to the social media platform formerly known as Twitter to comment upon the horrific murder of 11 Jews in the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh by a white nationalist.

“This kind of hate and violence goes against everything this country should stand for, and for which the University of Virginia will always stand,” he tweeted. “It falls to all of us to do everything we can, not just to keep our community safe but to prevent hate and bigotry from taking root in the first place.”

Someone warned him at the time to be careful, Ryan recalled in remarks to the UVa Board of Visitors Friday. Once he started commenting on news headlines, it would be difficult to stop. There is always something happening around the world. If university presidents comment on one story, they are expected to comment on the next. And if they don’t, people read meaning into the silence.

Maybe it’s time to rethink the practice of making public pronouncements on events of the day, Ryan suggested. Maybe it’s time to consider adopting the Kalven principles, a set of principles articulated by the University of Chicago’s Kalven Committee that urged colleges and universities to maintain institutional neutrality on social and political issues. Continue reading →

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Posted in Board of Visitors, Freedom of speech and expression, Governance

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Does UVa Need to Charge Higher Tuition to Keep Pay Competitive?

Posted on December 9, 2023 by | 4 comments

by James A. Bacon

The Ryan administration notched up two big wins in the University of Virginia Board of Visitors meeting Thursday and Friday. It pushed through 3% tuition increases for the next two academic years and it framed the budgetary debate to its advantage. Rather than engaging in a wide-ranging discussion of how UVa might hold down costs, the Board spent most of its time talking about the challenge of hiring and retaining faculty and staff, with the implicit assumption that staying competitive will require higher pay, more money, and higher tuitions.

The administration carefully orchestrated the discussion of tuition & fees from the very beginning — through an initial Finance Committee meeting in October, a public hearing on tuition increases at which only one person testified in November, and then the Board vote Friday. Each step of the way, the administration made lengthy presentations contending that UVa provides a superior value proposition to students, that it has restrained spending, and that inflationary pressures and cutbacks in state funding compel the university to raise tuition. Discussion was restricted to the data presented by the administration. Past efforts by board members to obtain additional information about UVa’s cost structure — in particular, about administrative costs — were ignored.

Bert Ellis, a former president of the Jefferson Council and appointee of Governor Glenn Youngkin, was the only board member to abstain from voting for the tuition increases. The seven other Youngkin appointees on the Board voted for the tuition increases, as did every holdover from the Northam administration.

The Ryan administration presented a case that was sometimes valid but frequently used cherrypicked data or made points that were shorn of context, as the Jefferson Council has documented in previous posts. There are no simple answers to the question of what the “right” level of tuition & fees should be. Optimal tradeoffs between affordability and costs require a vigorous and free-ranging debate at the Board level that simply did not occur. Continue reading →

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Posted in Board of Visitors, Governance, Tuition, affordability, scholarships

Now UVa Has a Religious Diversity Task Force

Posted on December 7, 2023 by | 7 comments

As tensions escalate between Muslims and Jews across the United States, the Ryan administration has announced the creation of a Task Force on Religious Diversity and Belonging at the University of Virginia.

“The ongoing conflict in the Middle East has affected all of us,” Provost Ian Baucom told the Board of Visitors Thursday. The goal is to support free speech at UVa while ensuring that “religious minorities” — he pointedly specified Muslims and Jews — feel like they belong, he said.

Referring to UVa’s “unwavering commitment to be a diverse and inclusive university,” Baucom said “that work began this week and will continue this year.”

Kevin McDonald, UVa’s vice president for diversity, equity & inclusion, and interim senior associate vice president of student affairs Cedric Rucker are “meeting with and breaking bread with our Jewish and Muslim students,” Baucom said.

The announcement follows two large rallies at UVa by Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) in support of the October 7 terrorist attacks on Israel. Pro-Palestinian students have chanted, “Palestine will be free, from the river to the sea,” which Israel sympathizers interpret as demanding the dissolution of the Israeli state. Continue reading →

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Posted in Board of Visitors, Freedom of speech and expression, Race, Equity and Diversity

Wait, What? An Operating Deficit at McIntire?

Posted on December 7, 2023 by | 1 comment

For policy nerds fascinated by the University of Virginia as an ongoing business enterprise, there was all sorts of interesting financial information in the Auditor of Public Accounts’ presentation Thursday to the Board of Visitors. Fiscal Year 2023 revenues for the combined health system and academic division closed out at $4.3 billion. Revenue from student tuition and fees was $690 million, philanthropic gifts amounted to $232 million, and investments (mostly from the endowment) generated another $190 million.

Oh, and then there was this note tucked away in the prepared Board materials but mentioned only in passing during the meeting: The McIntire School of Business — a business school where they teach things like, oh, I don’t know, like accounting — has been operating at a deficit.

Here’s how the Auditor of Public Accounts summarized the concerns raised in its audit of UVa finances (my bold): Continue reading →

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Posted in Administration, Board of Visitors

Fear and Loathing of Youngkin’s Higher Ed Policy

Posted on December 1, 2023 by | 1 comment

by James A. Bacon

In early October Governor Glenn Youngkin asked Attorney General Jason Miyares for a formal opinion on a seemingly innocuous question: Whose interests are members of Virginia’s public university governing boards supposed to represent? Miyares responded that the “primary duty” of the boards of visitors is to the commonwealth, not to the institutions themselves. The conclusion would seem to be so obvious, so clearly the intent of the state code, that it doesn’t warrant discussion.

But some people espy a vague but malign intent behind the finding.

Speaking to the higher-ed trade journal, Inside Higher Ed, Claire Gastañaga, former director of Virginia’s ACLU and a former deputy attorney general overseeing Virginia’s public colleges and universities, said Miyares’ opinion is a threat to the autonomy of public institutions. In the publication’s words, she “fears it signals an attempt by the governor to justify the removal of board members whose actions don’t align with his priorities” and replace them with appointees who share his priorities. Gastañaga pointed to the Bert Ellis bogeyman as evidence that Youngkin is scheming something nefarious. Continue reading →

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Posted in Board of Visitors, Governance

The Incomplete Case for Higher Tuition at UVa

Posted on October 19, 2023 by | 2 comments

by James A. Bacon

As the Board of Visitors ponders how much to raise tuition & fees in the next two academic years, the University of Virginia is grappling with strong inflationary pressures and a long-term shortfall in state aid, senior university administrators said Wednesday.

Even so, administrators told the Board’s Finance Committee, UVa offers a great “value proposition” compared to other Top 50 universities. Its in-state tuition is lower than that of top private universities, and its four-year graduation rate is the highest of any public university in the country.

The Finance Committee meeting yesterday marked the beginning of a two-month decision-making process. The purpose of the initial meeting, said Committee Chair Robert M. Blue, was to provide “context” for the discussion. A November hearing will allow students and others to express their views about college costs. The Board is scheduled to adopt a new tuition structure in December. 

Although university officials did not say explicitly that a tuition increase is justified, the “context” presented was geared to supporting such a conclusion. Board members offered no pushback during the one-and-a-half-hour session, asking only a few questions for purposes of clarification. They did not drill into the data proffered by administrators, nor, despite assurances that UVa was working assiduously to achieve efficiencies and reduce redundancies, did they ask for specifics. No one addressed faculty productivity, administrative overhead, or other drivers of university costs. Continue reading →

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Posted in Administration, Admissions, Board of Visitors, Tuition, affordability, scholarships