Drama mounted as the Board of Visitors convened from September 10th to 12th. The Board of Visitors, a group of the Virginia governor’s appointees, helps to govern the University. Primarily UVA alumni and Virginia residents, each of the Board’s 17 voting members serves a four-year term. In the most recent round of meetings, the Board discussed issues from ongoing construction to the search for UVA’s next president. This Board’s meetings have become a point of protest for faculty and students at UVA, though, and the issues at hand can be generally summed up into two core problems.
Firstly, the Board has not had the 17 required members it needs to govern since July, when a federal judge ruled that Youngkin appointees could be ousted by a Virginia Senate Privileges & Elections Committee. The majority democratic committee voted to remove them, arguing that Youngkin’s appointees were politically motivated. Since then, the Board has had a revolving door of around 12 members. The legality of the Board making decisions — especially ones as big as who to appoint as UVA’s 10th President — has been a point of tension.
Secondly, several student and faculty protests, including the one that took place during the recent Board of Visitors meeting, have focused on the federal pressure being exerted on the University. Already subject to the partisan whims of the state legislature tasked with appointing the Board, UVA also faces federal lawsuits surrounding the University’s hiring processes and DEI initiatives. During the most recent meeting, it was announced that two of the lawsuits had been dropped: one against the Batten and McIntire schools and one alleging misconduct regarding antisemitic activity on campus. However, several cases are still pending, putting federal funding at risk if the Board’s cooperation isn’t satisfactory. Students and faculty are concerned that their interests could be trumped by an undersized Board eagerly passing initiatives to avoid political consequences. Similar situations are or already have played out in universities across the US. The high-profile case of Columbia, where federal funding cuts forced the university to accept federally mandated changes to its curriculum and student disciplinary procedures, is an example of what many at UVA are worried about.
Meanwhile, UVA and its interim president, Paul Mahoney, have committed to an expanded presidential search process that includes 28 committee members. The University’s commitment to defending free speech during this time has been shown through initiatives such as the Civic Cornerstone Fellowship. Further, the Board has requested nominations from the public and other forms of community input regarding the presidential search.
Other details of the meeting are publicly available if students are interested in other possible changes coming to UVA. The recent Board meeting also focused on construction along the Emmet-Ivy corridor, near the new data science building. Board notes indicate that the University plans to make the area more usable for students in the future, including a state-of-the-art performing arts center. Despite the efforts of the Board of Visitors and Paul Mahoney, the anxiety of those in the University community is unlikely to subside, setting the stage for protests at future Board meetings. With its sensitivity to politics and precarious Board stability, students and staff will have to hope that the interim president’s claim that “the University’s core values, mission, and activities remain unchanged” is, and will remain, true.
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