The Board of Visitors will meet Wednesday through Friday in one of its quarterly meetings to discuss an addition to Fontaine Research Park, changing the name of Maury Hall and interview candidates to serve as the student member of the Board.
The Board of Visitors contains 17 voting members appointed by the Governor and manages the long-term planning of the University. Students, faculty, and community members can access livestream recordings of the meetings through on the Board of Visitors website.
Meeting of the Executive Committee
The Executive Committee met from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m Wednesday to interview finalists for the position of Student Member of the Board of Visitors and consider faculty members for the role of faculty representative to the board.
The newly selected student and faculty member will begin their year-long terms as non-voting members of the Board on June 1. The new member will replace fourth-year College student Sarita Mehta.
Meeting of the Health System Board
The Health System board is scheduled to meet from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. Thursday. Committee members will first hear reports from the Medical Center, School of Medicine and School of Nursing.
In closed session, the committee will discuss proprietary business-related information regarding the operations of the Medical Center, School of Medicine or School or Nursing. Topics to be discussed in closed session could include personnel recruitment and retention plans, proprietary information related to COVID-19, data demonstrating the quality of professional competency within the system, or legal matters requiring the insight of legal counsel.
The committee will end its meeting with a finance report from the finance working group, delivered by Board member Robert Blue and Douglas Lischke, chief financial officer for U.Va. Health.
Meeting of the Building and Grounds Committee
The Building and Grounds Committee will meet from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. on Thursday to vote on several action items related to project design and namings.
The committee will vote on whether or not to approve the design for the U.Va. Encompass Rehabilitation Hospital created by Fredrick and Associates Architects.
The renovation and addition, planned for Fontaine Research Park, has been allotted a budget of $35 million and will expand the facility with 60 new rehabilitation beds.
Also up for vote is a proposal to rename Maury Hall to John W. Warner Hall. The building, funded by the U.S. Navy and named for Confederate Naval officer and oceanographer Matthew Fontaine Maury, currently houses the ROTC program and classrooms. In July 2020, Mayor Levar Stoney of Richmond directed the city to remove a statue of Maury on the city’s historic Monument Avenue.
In the agenda, the committee states that Maury holds no connection to the University except for “giving a speech on Grounds supporting slavery in 1855.”
The proposed namesake John. W. Warner attended the School of Law and was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1978, serving on multiple committees and continuing to visit the University up until his death in 2021.
If approved, this change would follow a larger trend of the University renaming buildings to reflect changing perspectives to the school’s relationship with enslaved labor. Last year, the Board renamed Ruffner Hall to Ridley Hall to honor Walter Ridley, the first Black doctoral graduate from the University. The Board also voted to rename the Curry School of Education and Human Development to the School of Education and Human Development in fall 2020 given Curry’s legacy of slaveholding, opposition to integrating schools and service to the Confederate Army — was neither a student nor faculty member at the University.
The committee will also vote to name Keunen Garden in the Flagler Courtyard at Darden in honor of Charles Duffy, alumnus of the Darden School of Business and financial supporter of both Darden and the Jefferson Scholars Foundation.
Meeting of the Academic and Student Life Committee
On Thursday from 3:15 p.m. to 4:45 p.m, the Academic and Student Life Committee will hear reports from the Division of Student Affairs and the Undergraduate Advising Task Force, vote on proposed professorships, and receive an introduction to Tony Elliot, the new coach of Virginia football.
The committee will vote to approve professorships sponsored by donors, such as a Distinguished Professorship in the History and Principles of Democracy gifted by John Nau, who graduated from the University in 1968 and formerly served on the Board of Trustees.
Elliot was announced as the new head football coach on Dec. 13 and will attend the meeting to greet the committee. He previously served as an assistant on the coaching staff at Clemson, earning the Frank Broyles award for nation’s top assistant coach in 2017.
Former head coach Bronco Mendenhall announced his departure from the team following the end of the 2021 season following six years with the University.
Meeting of the Finance Committee
On Friday from 8:30 to 9:45 a.m., the Finance Committee will vote on multiple action items concerning the disposition of real property as well as a series of budget amendments intended to be transmitted to the Virginia General Assembly.
The Board will vote on the effort to seek authorization to transfer the real property bequeathed to the University by Shirley McIvor to the University of Virginia Foundation. The foundation manages, maintains and sells properties for the benefit of the University, which the BOV hopes to achieve for the McIvor property. If authorization is not granted, the Board will instead accept the title granted to them by McIvor’s estate and sell the property — the property currently has an appraisal value of $755,000 as of August 2019.
The Finance Committee will additionally be voting on budget amendments that call for a $500 million one-time investment for the University’s Institute of Biotechnology — $350 million will go towards construction while the remaining $150 will be for recruiting new faculty researchers.
Meeting of the Advancement Committee
The Advancement Committee will meet Friday at 9:45 a.m.
The Committee will first hear a report on Fundraising and Campaign progress — the background for which shows $322 million in gift and gift pledges raised, a 82 percent increase from last year. The fundraising total of $3.9 billion is currently ahead of schedule for the Honor the Future campaign, which has an overall goal of $5 billion.
The committee will also discuss the Cavalier Opportunity Fund, an initiative proposed by University President Jim Ryan to cover costs related to extracurricular activities for students in financial need.
Finally, the Committee will hear an announcement from President Ryan about a “significant gift from a generous donor to the University.”
Meeting of the Full Board
Friday afternoon at 1 p.m, the full Board of Visitors will convene. Members of the Board of Visitors will be given an opportunity to vote on the consent agenda, which includes a resolution to approve additional agenda items and a lease renewal for University Dean of Libraries John Unsworth to continue residing in Pavilion II on the East Lawn.
The board will review a commending resolution for Mehta, who has “helped to inform the Board of student perspectives on a number of timely and important issues,” per the meeting’s agenda. Such issues include undergraduate advising systems, student mental health programs, pandemic policies, efforts to increase diversity and inclusion, enrollment practices and engagement with student self-governance, according to the meeting agenda.
The full board will also hear remarks from Mehta, Rector Whittington Clement and Faculty Senate Chair Susan Kirk.
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