The Board of Visitors will convene Thursday and Friday, and will discuss amendments to the University’s requested budget from the state government, as well as progress made towards the University’s sustainability goals. The Board will also discuss supporting a set of guidelines developed by the Committee on Institutional Statements — a task force created to advise University President Jim Ryan and the administration on when and how the school should comment on contentious political issues.
The Board is the University’s governing body responsible for overseeing its long term future, and is composed of 17 voting members appointed by the Governor, one non-voting faculty representative and one non-voting student member. After Governor Youngkin appointed five new members in June, the number of Board members that he had appointed grew to 13 — a voting majority.
The Full Board will assemble twice — first on Wednesday evening for a discussion of the University’s athletics, then Friday afternoon for a more extended meeting.
The Friday meeting will also include a discussion with University leadership about the Committee on Institutional Statements — which was formed in February to advise the University on how and when it should comment on national and global issues. The Board will decide whether to endorse the task force’s finding that — unless an issue directly affects the University’s operations or missions — the University should not express opinions about social or political questions.
The task force cited concerns of compromising academic freedom and free speech, as well as the possibility for controversial political statements to weaken the public’s trust in the University as reasons for its conclusion.
“At its core a university is a place of study, where knowledge is discovered, developed, improved, and disseminated without fear or favor,” the statement reads. “Over the centuries universities have contributed to democratic society by being arenas of robust debate, by submitting even the most settled ideas to testing, and by practicing both intellectual humility about how much we know and confidence about how much we can know.”
Friday’s Full Board meeting will also include commending resolutions for the five members of the Board whose terms ended over the summer, as well as signing the University’s certification for membership in the Atlantic Coast Conference.
After the Full Board meets, it will reconvene and vote to adopt all action items brought forth from Committee meetings.
The Board’s Finance Committee will meet Friday morning, where they will discuss amendments made to its 2024 to 2026 state budget. Amendments include requests for additional funding at U.Va. Health, as well as for utilities, mental health services and for the Virginia Military Survivors and Dependents Education Program — a state program that provides educational support for children and spouses of veterans.
The Finance Committee will also review contracts exceeding $5 million for both the Health System and the academic division, authorizing the University to execute contracts with Acme Technical Group for electronic building access systems such as card readers, as well as with Johnson and Johnson Health Care Systems, Medtronic and Compass Group for various health system operations and equipment.
The Finance Committee will also receive annual reports from the University of Virginia Investment Management Company and the U.Va. Health Plan, the health insurance provided to University employees.
The Academic and Student Life Committee will deliberate over changing and creating faculty titles and professorships, before hearing about recent events and accomplishments from Executive Vice President and Provost Ian Baucom and Vice President for Research Lori McMahon.
The Builds and Grounds Committee will hear an action item on renaming Commerce Grounds — which includes Rouss and Robertson Halls, as well as under-construction Cobb and Shumway Halls — to become Breeden Commerce Grounds. Ramon Breeden, Jr., Class of 1956 McIntire alumnus, has been a prominent donor to McIntire.
The Committee will also hear a report from Andrea Trimble, director of the University Office for Sustainability, fourth-year Batten student Ellie Cowan and third-year Batten student London Tuma about the University’s progress towards its sustainability goals, as well as the Office for Sustainability’s student leadership programs.
According to the presentation that will be shown to the Board, the University has reduced its carbon emissions by 44.8 percent, while also surpassing its energy efficiency goals and saving millions of dollars in energy and utility costs. The committee will also hear updates on restoration, renewal and renovation projects across Grounds, including the renewal of the Physics Building.
The Board’s Advancement Committee will discuss fundraising initiatives, including the Honor the Future campaign, which surpassed its $5 billion goal in January. They will also discuss alumni participation rates, with Board documents showing that overall alumni participation has grown in the last two years, but is still lower than where it was before the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Health System Board will meet Thursday morning, the first assembly of the body since the Full Board received a letter of no confidence in Craig Kent, chief executive officer of U.Va. Health, and Melina Kibbe, dean of the School of Medicine. The letter, signed by 128 U.Va. Physicians Group-employed faculty, calls for the removal of the two administrators, alleging that they had fostered a toxic and harmful work environment that had compromised patient safety.
The Health System Board will hear from both Kent and Kibbe during its meeting, though it is unknown if either will address the letter. Otherwise, the Board will go over financials, hear about advances in cancer therapies at U.Va. Health, receive updates on new clinics within the Health System and review progress toward various target metrics.
The Audit, Compliance and Risk Committee will spend a majority of its Friday meeting in closed session. They will also hear updates on the ongoing Auditor of Public Accounts of the Commonwealth of Virginia audit — an annual process of reviewing financial statements from the previous fiscal year — which they discussed at their previous meeting in June. The committee will also hear reports about compliance policies such as institutional reporting and incident management methods to ensure the University and its employees abide by state and federal rules and regulations.
The Committee for the College at Wise will hear a report about the school’s enrollment, as well as vote to approve a Master of Science in Nursing program specifically for Family Nurse Practitioners. According to Board documents, the new program looks to increase primary care providers in southwest Virginia and improve population health in the area through screenings and disease prevention. Enrollment information that will be presented to the Board shows that undergraduate enrollment at the College at Wise has grown, and is projected to continue doing so, though retention rates for transfer students have recently gone down.
All meetings that take place in the Rotunda — which includes all individual committee meetings, besides the Health System Board — will be livestreamed online. The Health System Board will meet at Boar’s Head Inn.
After its September meeting, The Board’s next full meeting will be Dec. 5 to Dec. 6, though it is possible that there will be off-cycle meetings this fall.
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By Lexie Stadler | 12 hours agoUniversity President Jim Ryan previously voiced concerns at a Board meeting last December about the lack of protocol for University responses to social and political issues.
