Category Archives: Governance

by James A. Bacon

Last week an unidentified group distributed a pamphlet addressed to the Board of Visitors: “We’re Pissed Off. You Should Be Too.” The tract argued that the governance structure at UVa is undemocratic, that faculty and student workers are underpaid, and that Board of Visitors member Bert Ellis (and Jefferson Council president) is an abomination who should be expelled from the board or, at the very least, be removed from his board committee assignments.

The authors did themselves no credit when referring to Ellis as “a known racist, homophobe, and bigoted asshole of a human being.” (The bold face is in the pamphlet.) That is not an invitation to a creating a dialogue and working out differences.

Having countered the slanders against Ellis elsewhere, I will not address them here. Rather, my intention is to take seriously the “We’re Pissed Off” critique of UVa’s governance structure. As puerile as its language is, the pamphlet is the only analysis we’ve seen (other than our own) that questions how UVa is run.

You will never see the issues raised by “We’re Pissed Off” in UVa Today, the mouthpiece of the Ryan administration, or in Virginia, the house organ of the University of Virginia Alumni Association. Such perspectives are rare even in the pages of the Cavalier Daily, which fixates on issues of racial, sexual and gender identity rather than how the university is governed.

We think the authors of “We’re Pissed Off” are wrong on almost every count. But occasionally they make a valid point. And other than their unhinged personal attacks on Ellis, they address important matters that warrant an open and honest discussion. These include such questions as: Continue reading →

In a presentation to its Board of Visitors, administrators at George Mason University showed a graph (seen above) comparing the number of employees per student at Virginia’s six public research universities. GMU shared with Old Dominion University the distinction of having the lowest employee-student ratio of the six. The purpose, of course, was to make the GMU administration look good by comparison.

Perhaps it’s a chart that the UVa Board of Visitors should see as well, though for entirely different reasons. By this reckoning, UVa has two-and-a-half times as many employees per student as GMU. On the face of it, that seems scandalous.

The disparity is so stark that one might legitimately inquire if the GMU functionaries who compiled this data were comparing apples with apples, so I don’t rush to any judgment. However, it would seem reasonable for UVa’s board members to ask for an explanation.

— JAB

Bert Ellis

by James A. Bacon

Governor Glenn Youngkin has announced his appointments to the boards of visitors of Virginia’s colleges and universities, at least one of which has the potential to be highly consequential — Bert Ellis, a serial entrepreneur and major donor, at the University of Virginia.

Ellis has been a prominent critic of UVa’s leftward drift under President Jim Ryan. He is president of The Jefferson Council, an alumni organization formed a year and a half ago to preserve free speech, promote intellectual diversity, protect the legacy of Thomas Jefferson, and preserve the dignity of the Jefferson-designed “academical village” centered on the Rotunda and Lawn. (Full disclosure: I am vice president-communications of The Jefferson Council.)

The current board has provided little pushback to Ryan’s policies. Rector Whitt Clement has worked behind the scenes to blunt the worst excesses, but he avoids confrontation. His personal style is to be a conciliator. He has achieved some success on free-speech issues, but has been powerless to halt more fundamental changes in university culture.

In an update to Jefferson Council members in December, Ellis noted approvingly that Governor Glenn Youngkin, Lt. Governor Winsome Sears and Attorney General Jason Miyares were are all interested in “re-focusing UVA and other colleges and K-12 schools in Virginia on educating students and not brainwashing them with the Woke/CRT/DEI mantras that have overtaken UVA and almost all other colleges and K-12 schools in Virginia and across our country.” Continue reading →

UVa President Jim Ryan

by Walter Smith

University of Virginia President Jim Ryan has entered into three employment agreements with UVa (technically, the Board of visitors on behalf of UVa). His first agreement was executed in September of 2017, to commence on October 1, 2018, and to last through July 31, 2025. His second agreement, executed as of March 2, 2018, amended his agreement to commence as of August 1, 2018. His third, and current, agreement was executed on March 2, 2022, extending his term of employment until July 31, 2028.

I will summarize its terms for your convenience. This summary will necessarily leave out some of the details, and, if that bothers you, then read the entire agreement yourself! (View the contract and compensation.)

The “term” is set to expire on July 31, 2028, and “renewal” discussions are to commence no later than March 31, 2027, with a desired termination date of discussions by July 31, 2027. In other words, if President Ryan’s employment is not to continue beyond the current term, he desires one year notice of his impending non-renewal. Continue reading →

A couple of weeks ago, Walter Smith raised questions about the lack of accountability of the leadership of the University of Virginia Alumni Association. Graduates of the Virginia Military Institute are asking similar questions about the VMI Alumni Association, whose governing rules allow a hermetically sealed oligarchy to perpetuate itself.

Dissident UVa alumni may find the Open Letter penned by their VMI counterparts to be worth reading.

Once upon a time, nobody cared how alumni associations were governed. As long as they held good reunion parties, it didn’t matter. But alumni associations have evolved into adjuncts of university administrations, becoming critical partners in university fund-raising campaigns, purveyors of pro-administration propaganda, and implicit supporters of “progressive” policies pursued by those administrations. Whose interests does UVa’s alumni uphold — those of the alumni, or those of the UVa adminstration?