As President Scott Beardsley’s appointment continues to face scrutiny, Faculty Senate Chair Jeri Seidman says she hopes Governor Abigail Spanberger’s newly appointed Board of Visitors will revisit the presidential selection. This call diverges from the University’s Student Council January resolution affirming Beardsley’s leadership, a decision that StudCo President Clay Dickerson says is about bringing stability to the student body after a disruptive year. This decision came before the Faculty Senate urged the new members of the Board of Visitors to investigate the selection process to appoint Beardsley. Seidman says that the relationship between the Faculty Senate and the Student Council will not change despite diverging positions on the issue.
What is the Faculty Senate?
The Faculty Senate is a University-sanctioned organization, like the University’s Honor Committee, representative of elected leaders from each of the schools on Grounds. Faculty refers to individuals responsible for teaching, research, and professional practice. They act as engines to ensure the integrity of the academic environment and serve as advisors on education-related matters to the University President, the Board of Visitors, and the Rector.
Opposing Resolutions: Faculty Senate and Student Council
Scott Beardsley, former Dean of the Darden School of Business, took office on January 1st, despite demands from Governor Spanberger and the Faculty Senate to pause the confirmation of new leadership until the appointment of new members to the Board of Visitors (“BOV”). The Faculty Senate and Student Council published separate statements condemning the resignation of Jim Ryan in June, and the Board’s search for a new President as lacking transparency and University input. Dickerson appeared alongside advocacy groups like the United Campus Workers and the American Association of University Professors to denounce the selection of Interim-President Paul Mahoney. “If nothing changes in the time to come, a sustained lack of trust will certifiably lead to further irreparable damage to their relationship with the students,” Dickerson said shortly after the BOV’s selection of Mahoney.
This conflict came to a head in December when the Board confirmed the appointment of Beardsley to be President, side-stepping warnings from the Student Council about the implications of the decision on the BOV’s relationship with students. “It has become clear that the board is neglecting the damage a rush presidential selection will do to our University,” read the statement by the Student Council (“StudCo”) on December 19th. “Students cannot put their hope into an appointment made despite their vote of no confidence and lack of discussion regarding our needs.” The Board moved forward despite these petitions.
As a result, the Faculty Senate also called into question the legitimacy of Beardsley’s Presidency. On January 15th, the Faculty Senate sent a resolution to the BOV urging them to investigate his selection. In an email to the Board obtained by the Jefferson Independent, Seidman expresses the necessity of such action.
… engagement with the Faculty Senate is one of the most direct and efficient ways for the Board to hear informed faculty perspectives on institutional priorities, academic policy, and the lived impact of Board-level decisions…In the present moment, that two-way communication is essential to restoring institutional stability and trust.
I was also asked to ensure that all Board members had received the resolution adopted by the Faculty Senate on January 15, which calls on the newly reconstituted Board of Visitors to review the presidential search process and determine an appropriate path forward. The Senate believes that a careful review, followed by transparent communication of the Board’s conclusions, is necessary.
If the Board determines that the process was sound, the University community needs to hear clearly what strengths and qualifications led to the President’s selection and how concerns about the process, contract, and background have been addressed…The Faculty Senate stands ready to engage seriously with you in the work of rebuilding trust and stability on Grounds.
The outcome of the investigation bears weight for the Faculty Senate; what’s important is that it takes place and the material obtained is made public: “…that decision might be to affirm Beardsley. That decision might be to ask for to start a new presidential search. That decision might be somewhere in the middle,” said Seidman during an interview on February 18th. “The Senate has taken the stance of not presupposing the outcome of any review because we don’t have the full information or the full decision set.”
The decision to affirm Beardsley with an internal review got StudCo in major flak from the AAUP, who claims a potential quid pro quo by the President’s office as a way to decrease the coalition, once united against the Board and administration. StudCo’s resolution is noticeably absent from their website. “[That is] exactly what Beardsley wanted by coming in and bribing [Student Council] into supporting him. I think that’s exactly what he’s doing,’” George Mentore, President of the UVA Chapter of AAUP, told The Daily Progress.
When asked why the Faculty Senate and Student Council diverge in their decisions, Seidman attributed it to the unusual nature of their shared dissent against the administration.
“Until late June, Faculty Senate and Student Council have regularly been on different tracks. We’ve regularly focused on different things. It was an alignment that was temporary…that alignment sort of came in September, [but] I think there’s still a lot of things that we’re aligned about. Usually, Student Council is focusing on the things that they’re interested in with regard to relatively short-term goals for students,” says Seidman.
Seidman also points to the different positions students and faculty are in that encourages different priorities due to differing timelines. “They’re trying to establish things that they think are important that they hope will continue beyond their one or two years. But realistically, you know, four or five years from now, they might come back, and none of the initiatives that they started might still exist.” When asked about how the Student Council’s structure affects their interests, Seidman highlights the differing lengths of leadership between the Faculty Senate and the Student Council. “Senators serve for four years, executive council members serve for three years, and Student Council members are re-elected every single year. So, anything that they’re negotiating for, they don’t know if it’s going to exist more than a year or two beyond when they get it started. It’s just a very different horizon.”
When asked if the Student Council resolution on Beardsley will impact their relationship with the Faculty Senate, Seidman claims the ball is in StudCo’s court: “I don’t know that Faculty Senate regularly has a lot of awareness about what Student Council is doing. Our interactions have just been driven by years when students wanted to have a relationship, and we were happy to have a relationship, and then perhaps the next year that wasn’t the interest, and then we didn’t have a relationship. It’s hard to get something like that going because, again, every year the people who are voted in can decide how they feel about that initiative and change it.”
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