UCLA Faculty Association: Board to U-VA President: Here's Your Hat; What's Your Hurry?

Monday, June 11, 2012

Board to U-VA President: Here's Your Hat; What's Your Hurry?

Inside Higher Ed today carries a lengthy article today on the dismissal of the president of the University of Virginia (after only a two-year term) by its equivalent of the Regents - known there as the Board of Visitors. (Technically, she agreed to resign.) U-VA has often been paired with the U of Michigan for its move toward semi-privatization (more reliance on tuition and other funding sources and less on the state). The head of the Board issued a press release on the dismissal explaining the decision (excerpts):

We see no bright lights on the financial horizon as we face limits on tuition increases, an environment of declining federal support, state support that will be flat at best, and pressures on health care payors. This means that as an institution, we have to be able to prioritize and reallocate the resources we do have, and that our best avenue for increasing resources will be through passionate articulation of a vision and effective development efforts to support it. We also believe that higher education is on the brink of a transformation now that online delivery has been legitimized by some of the elite institutions…

To achieve these aspirations, the Board feels the need for a bold leader who can help develop, articulate, and implement a concrete and achievable strategic plan to re-elevate the University to its highest potential. We need a leader with a great willingness to adapt the way we deliver our teaching, research, and patient care to the realities of the external environment. We need a leader who is able to passionately convey a vision to our community, and effectively obtain gifts and buy-in towards our collective goals…

The Board believes this environment calls for a much faster pace of change in administrative structure, in governance, in financial resource development and in resource prioritization and allocation. We do not believe we can even maintain our current standard under a model of incremental, marginal change…

Full statement available at http://www.virginia.edu/uvatoday/newsRelease.php?id=18791

The detailed Inside Higher Ed article describing the decision is at http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/06/11/u-virginia-president-leave-over-philosophical-differences

U-VA is a high-profile university and these events will undoubtedly be noticed by the UC Regents and others in the world of higher education. Apparently, there is significant faculty concern about the sudden dismissal.