After concluding her final meeting of the full Board of Visitors this month, fourth-year College student Lisa Kopelnik will officially step down from her position as the Board’s non-voting student representative June 1.
During Kopelnik’s term, the Board was faced with a variety of local and national challenges, including allegations against high-ranking officials within the U.Va. Health System and executive orders from a new presidential administration. While working with the Board to address these issues, Kopelnik focused on her core values — promoting civil discourse, embracing student diversity and maintaining the health and safety of the student body.
Kopelnik’s initial interest in student self-governance at the University was sparked during her first-year convocation where she heard from student self-governance leaders including the University Judiciary Committee chair, the Honor Committee chair and the Student Council president.
“I don't think I fully understood what student self-governance was or meant to U.Va. until I had heard [these leaders] speak and really understood what it means for students to have responsibility and agency to shape their university,” Kopelnik said.
Following convocation, Kopelnik applied for a position with the UJC — an organization which investigates and adjudicates alleged violations of the University’s Standards of Conduct — and was elected as a first-year representative from the College. She then climbed the self-governance ladder and later served as UJC chair as a third-year student before applying to the position of Board student representative.
Kopelnik was selected by the Board in March 2024, following her year-long term as UJC chair. As the sole student member of the Board which consists of 17 University officials, Kopelnik was tasked with advocating for the needs of the student body and serving as a liaison between current students and Board members. While the student member position does not have voting power, Kopelnik acts as an advisory member of the Board as they make decisions which impact students and the community at large.
“I think a lot of my job is presenting stories and humanizing the student experience to the board to convey to them why different programs [are] really important,” Kopelnik said.
Kopelnik entered the position of student representative with three priorities — promoting civil discourse, embracing student diversity and maintaining the health and safety of the student body. According to Kopelnik, the University has made significant strides concerning these issues, but there are still several issues in need of further development and attention which she addressed during her time with the Board.
Kopelnik said that she was initially intimidated by the task of representing the needs and perspectives of an entire population of students. However, her fellow Board members and President Jim Ryan welcomed her into this new role, encouraging her to share her voice and listening to her opinion on critical issues.
“I really do think that every Board member is dedicated to their service, and having that as common ground was really helpful, because it meant that they wanted to hear from me,” Kopelnik said. “They valued what I had to say, and I valued, certainly, what they had to say.”
Kopelnik served as the student representative during a political transition from the Biden to Trump administration which brought pressure to public institutions, such as the University, which receive federal funding.
Early in her term, Governor Glenn Youngkin also appointed five new members to the Board earlier in Kopelnik’s term. And over the past several months of Kopelnik’s term, the Board witnessed the resignation of former U.Va. Health CEO Craig Kent, voted on the reinstatement of gender affirming care for patients age 18 and below following a temporary suspension and approved increases in tuition, housing and meal plan rates.
With the many policy and administrative changes that took place this past year, Kopelnik said that she felt it was her duty to be a source of connection, communication and transparency between students and the Board.
“It's a divisive time everywhere across the nation, and I think that my job was to try to create some level of transparency, to create some level of trust between students and the Board,” Kopelnik said.
One recent, controversial University-wide decision came when the Board voted to dissolve the University Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion March 7. This decision was a direct response to the Jan. 21 executive order from the Trump Administration threatening federal funding for public institutions that maintained DEI programming.
As a non-voting member of the Board, Kopelnik had no direct say in this decision but said that she served as an advocate for the diverse needs, interests and perspectives of the student population.
“It's a complicated landscape. There are legal challenges,” Kopelnik said. “However, I do think that it's about the values that we want to have as a University. And I think that having a diverse student body is a really important value … and I think that we need to support that value as much as we can.”
Kopelnik cited the Cavalier Fund — a student grant of up to $1,000 per academic year to support participation in extracurricular activities — as one of several programs that she worked hard to promote to the Board in order to advocate for socioeconomic diversity and inclusion at the University. According to Kopelnik, this program was initially introduced prior to her term but, through Board endorsement, has “taken off” this year and provided many more students with the funding to pursue their individual interests than in previous years.
According to Kopelnik, her work in student self-governance translated to her success with the Board by allowing her to build relationships with fellow student leaders and University administrators. Kopelnik’s time with the UJC also provided her with an understanding of the inner workings of the University administration.
“There was an institutional knowledge that I got from being the Chair of the Judiciary Committee,” Kopelnik said. “[Also] the exposure that I got to different communities from working with different students totally shaped how I approach representing students as a [Board] representative.”
Graduating in May 2025, Kopelnik will receive her undergraduate degree in Economics and Politics in the Honors Program. She plans to work in Washington before eventually attending law school to further her interests in politics and the law.
As she prepares to step down from the position, Kopelnik offered words of advice to students, emphasizing the importance of staying engaged and informed about the Board’s actions.
“I'm grateful to the students who worked with me this year,” Kopelnik said. “There were a lot of really complicated and difficult issues, and I think that students have to [stay engaged]. We have agency over our University, and part of that is working with the Board.”
Kopelnik will continue to serve as the Board student representative until June 1, when third-year College student Gregory Perryman will succeed Kopelnik as the new student representative to the Board.
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