This may sound like an echo, but repetition is good way to help someone absorb a new idea.
You should go to a Board of Visitors meeting.
The Cavalier Daily's Managing Board wrote that last week. They are right.
I have never been to a University of Virginia Board of Visitors meeting, but I have covered boards of visitors meetings at other public universities. I can tell you two things without reservation: They are often boring. They are often important.
According to the University's website, the Board, which meets four times a year, is "responsible for the long-term planning of the University. The Board approves the policies and budget of the University, and is entrusted with the preservation of the University's many traditions, including the Honor System."
Boards of visitors are sort of like corporate boards of directors. They make broad policy decisions, usually after they have been briefed by members of the administration or other people the administration thinks the Board should hear from. And that can be a problem. I have seen boards come to a campus and make sweeping declarations and decisions while completely oblivious to what is really happening on that campus. They are visitors, after all. They do not live here.
That is not an indictment of boards in general and certainly not of the University's Board in particular. I am not as familiar with the University's Board as you should be, so for all I know they are paragons of decision-making who come to the perfect solution to every problem and the perfect answer to every question. But then again, they are human beings, so I expect that is not completely true.
People make the best decisions when they have the best information. If you have never been to a Board of Visitors meeting, you do not have the best information about the Board and how it works. And if Board members have not heard from students, they do not have the best information about the University in its current form. You can help each other out.
There is a student representative on the Board, but that student does not get a vote. And, while other Board members are appointed to four-year terms, the student gets a one-year term. That is clearly a junior member position. What that student can do is help bring the concerns and points of view of students to the Board. But that is just one student. Like all of us, that person moves in a limited circle of experiences and relationships. That one representative cannot possibly know and understand and fully represent every student at the University. So you should help.
I will tell you something else about the boards of visitors I have seen in action. Nearly all the work gets done by committees. A person going to a full Board meeting may get the impression that no one there gives things much consideration or discussion and nearly everyone agrees on nearly everything. Attending committee meetings may give you a different perspective.
Board members get briefing books on the issues they discuss. You can get them, too. They are public documents. Some of the information the Board gets is available online. The Board's meetings are public meetings, except for the parts Virginia's Freedom of Information Act allows to be held in closed session. The Board of Visitors uses the quaint and inaccurate term "executive session." The FOIA calls them "closed meetings" because that is what they are: meetings that are closed to the public.
The Cavalier Daily's Managing Board worries that it may be difficult to get students interested in "the sort of long-term issues the Board usually tackles." The Managing Board tied the Board of Visitors and its decisions to students' long-term interests, arguing that "the decisions made by the Board have a marked influence on alumni as well as current students - each individual with a degree from the University has an interest in maintaining the school's academic caliber."
That is true. But the Board of Visitors can do things that affect you right now, too.
It is nothing new to notice that people get much more excited about presidential elections than they do about elections for Congress or state legislators or local governments. In fact, the interest seems to be more or less proportional to the size of the area represented by the person standing for election. But each step down that ladder brings government closer to the voter. A city council - which sets local taxes and approves school budgets and decides which roads get repaired - has a much more direct effect on the lives of people in its jurisdiction than someone living on Pennsylvania Avenue does.
The Board of Visitors is sort of like your city council. Only you did not get to vote for them. So maybe you should at least figure out how they work and what they are up to.
Tim Thornton is the ombudsman for The Cavalier Daily.
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