After a back-and-forth struggle between Governor Youngkin, Governor-elect Spanberger, and the Board of Visitors regarding the selection of the 10th president of the University of Virginia, Scott Beardsley officially took office on January 1st.
Beardsley was unanimously selected by UVA’s Board of Visitors on December 19th, 2025 during a closed session meeting. Shortly afterwards, Rector Rachel Sheridan announced that Beardsley — the then longstanding Dean of the Darden School of Business — would be the official successor to the former President Jim Ryan, who resigned in June amid pressure from school administrators and the US Department of Justice over the University’s diversity, equity, and inclusion policies.
Scott Beardsley, at the time of his selection, was the longest-serving active dean at the University of Virginia, residing in Pavilion I on the Lawn with his family and dog, appropriately named “Lawnie.” He has served as the Dean of the Darden School of Business since 2015, leading the school towards a significant rise in global rankings including most recently being named the best by the Financial Times. His other projects as Dean of Darden include major infrastructure planning and the launch of a new artificial intelligence institute back in 2024.
The new president of the University has more than just being an incredibly successful dean on his résumé, however. Prior to entering higher education administration, Beardsley spent over two decades at McKinsey & Company, where he rose to senior partner and helped lead the firm’s global talent development efforts. He holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Tufts University, an MBA from MIT, and a doctorate in higher education management from the University of Pennsylvania. In his spare time, he also completed further certified graduate studies in practical ethics related to artificial intelligence at the University of Oxford. He also currently serves as a senior advisor to the Carlyle Group, a global investment firm specializing in private equity, that Governor Youngkin was the co-CEO of prior to stepping down to run for Governor.
Beardlsey’s appointment came despite months of loud resistance from students, faculty, and state officials — such as the incoming Governor-elect Spanberger — who argued that the presidential search was pressing forward illegitimately under legal and procedural uncertainty. This is because at the time of the vote, the Board of Visitors were operating with an incomplete membership, following the General Assembly’s rejection of Governor Youngkin’s appointees. Governor-elect Abigail Spanberger sent in a formal request that the Board pause the search until after her inauguration on January 17th, when she would be able to appoint new members and bring the Board into full statutory compliance, a request that we would discover the Board of Visitors ignored upon the announcement of Scott Beardsley’s selection.
Other faculty and students echoed her request prior to the appointment, with the Faculty Senate and Student Council both issuing votes of no confidence in the Board’s leadership, warning that moving forward with a presidential appointment under those conditions risked undermining the legitimacy of the office itself. In the days leading up to that fateful December meeting, nine of the University’s fourteen academic deans also called for the Board to halt the process. Despite all of this, the search continued.
On the day of the vote, faculty and staff gathered outside the meeting room to protest, holding signs and chanting for a hold along with more transparency as to their actions. Inside, members of the public were allowed into the room very briefly before the Board pushed into a closed session. When the decision was officially announced, very audible disapproval could be heard from those attending the protest.
The Board of Visitors defended their selection and its process as an incredibly inclusive and thorough five-month search that considered roughly 100 nominations, even involving an external search firm. In a statement released following the vote, the Board emphasized that they selected Beardsley for their belief in his ability to lead the University through this period of political and financial pressure while protecting its academic mission.
For the critics of this decision, however, the issue was never solely about the candidate nor with President Scott Beardsley, but with the manner of which he was chosen: specifically after a request for a hold by the government, fellow administration, and students alike. Another issue arose, as the selection was announced after the start of winter break when the majority of students were off-Grounds. When asked, a second-year student from the College of Arts & Sciences remarked that “it felt like cowardice, to specifically wait until all the students were off grounds so that we can’t protest. It’s like they knew exactly how we would react and yet are trying to avoid the consequences of causing that reaction anyways.”
This controversy around Beardsley’s appointment reflects a deeper struggle over governance at UVA — one that has pushed a sitting president into resigning, federal scrutiny over University policies, student council trying to maintain a structure of self-governance, and an increasingly strained relationship between the Board of Visitors and the broader University and Charlottesville community. Beardsley begins his tenure with an official mandate, but one from an incomplete Board, and so he does amid questions about trust, transparency, and where the ability to decide the University’s future truly lies. With the inauguration on January 1st, the presidency is now settled in name — but certainly not in confidence.
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