<p>This mess is why I didn’t want my child to go to UVA. I’m disgusted and appalled at the decision and the way it was handled. I don’t care if she had ‘philosophical differences’ or not. When the students, faculty, parents, alumni, former UVA Presidents, and the President of the Assoc. of American Universities (or whatever the exact name is) speak out against something in such forceful terms, there is a HUGE problem. </p>
<p>I agree with the depiction of this as a Coup. You would think UVA was THE University of some Third World Country instead of Va.</p>
<p>Decentralizing funding and budgeting has an advantage - it may make departments adapt better to the desires of students. At the grad school I attended, 15 to 18% of your tuition dollars went to each department where you were taking a course that semester. If a department offered more courses and courses that better fit with the interests of the students, they attracted more students and more funding, so they could in turn hire more professors. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, if a department generated little interest among students, and didn’t provide high quality teaching, their funding would shrink over time. The funding evolved over time without the administration having to get the votes to cut their funding. It was a logical system of incentives and disincentives. </p>
<p>That market-based funding system also pushes departments to make sure their best teachers are assigned to their largest classes, which is not always the case today at UVa. </p>
<p>Instead, at most universities, the same funding carries over from year to year, and there is little adaption to changing demands.</p>
<p>TVCaster - I’ve never been prouder of the way the department heads, other faculty, staff, alums and students are rising to the occasion. Watch Virginia TV news Monday night.</p>
<p>New lyrics:
From Rugby Road to Carr’s Hill, We’re gonna get mad tonight.
The faculty’s aside of us, They know we’re in the right,
So fill your cups, your loving cups, As full as full can be,
And as long as truth and honor last, We’ll drink to the U. of V.</p>
<p>Oh, I think we need another Board! Heh!
I think we need another Board! Heh!
I think we need another Board! Heh!
I think we need another Board! To the glory of the U. Va.</p>
<hr>
<p>Also, someone please please paint Beta Bridge to announce the rally Monday 2:30 at the Rotunda.</p>
<p>Wow. If the above article is proven to be true, good luck to UVA in trying to get any top professors/administrators in the future. The idiots on the BOV might have really screwed the university for years to come if the things coming out are accurate.</p>
<p>Northwesty “At this point, there is absolutely no basis on which to form an opinion on whether Sullivan should/should not have been fired.”</p>
<p>One of the few level headed comments so far on this board. I think we all agree that the process was handled poorly but whether the decision was appropriate or not depends upon information that we don’t have in our possession.</p>
<p>Northwesty "As compared to most state flagships, UVA has been relatively small, more national, more selective, focused on the humanities more than engineering and science. UVA has been a “public ivy” with the emphasis (at least in the eyes of UVA grads) on the ivy part. Awesome at lacrosse but lousy at football.
Tech, in contrast, seems to be more in line with Richmond’s agenda and is more typical of what most state U’s look like – bigger, less expensive to attend, more local/regional, land grant/ag school heritage which translates today into more of a focus on STEM. And good at football… "</p>
<p>It costs more to educate engineering students than humanities students so one would expect that a humanities heavy university would have an easier time maintaining control over tuition increases.</p>
<p>"Northwesty “At this point, there is absolutely no basis on which to form an opinion on whether Sullivan should/should not have been fired.”</p>
<p>One of the few level headed comments so far on this board. I think we all agree that the process was handled poorly but whether the decision was appropriate or not depends upon information that we don’t have in our possession."</p>
<p>Who knows if the public will ever know if the decision were appropriate or not? The way the BOV has handled things, it might not make much of a difference regardless IMHO. The damage already has been done. The general public might not be paying close attention to what has happened, but I can assure you academia has.</p>
<p>The article about Tudor Jones is as least plausible. Maybe Sullivan wasn’t a good enough fund raiser.</p>
<p>As the article below points out, Casteen himself almost got fired back in the 90s for not raising enough dough. His great success as president was basically ignoring all other tasks so he could raise money 100% of the time. If you can’t raise OOS enrollment, if you can’t raise tuition, if you can’t raise state support, then don’t blame Tudor Jones or the BOV if fund raising is the reason for Sullivan’s demise. </p>
<p>If you set up your University’s finances so that you need people to write you $100 million checks, you can’t complain if those donors want you to listen to their ideas. As the NY Times article points out, Casteen seemed to be pretty good at telling potential donors that their ideas and vision for UVA were terrific.</p>
<p>It’s rare to force out a president without a good reason. Politics…too much risk. Money…often the cause. Philosophical differences are expected and worked out between boards and presidents…I doubt this was the cause. Change UVA’s mission from small selective, elite, to large, non selective, providing a quality low cost education to all IS students…not needed in VA there are many quality public schools in state. Stop the calls to politicians offices from upset parents after junior was rejected…probably not. Why? I don’t think the board wants to hurt the university with bad PR, a drop in USNR, loss of staff, or scaring off students.</p>
<p>I agree with ChrisTKD. In general, it costs more to educate engineers. VT’s engineering school is much bigger than UVa’s(have had one kid in each engineering school). VT is building a Signature Engineering Building currently with a combination of state funds and donations. VT imposes extra fees on engineering, architecture and interior design majors. Virginia Tech does also have a national reputation in addition to its regional reputation and was recently ranked #13 by job recruiters in a WSJ poll . UVa was ranked #19.</p>
<p>UVa has just instituted additional fees for engineers this year. Both a straight fee as well as a per credit fee if I remember correctly. I wasn’t surprised as it’s a model used by many engineering schools.</p>
<p>Fair enough re Gather. See also the Slate and Hook articles posted elsewhere on this thread which discuss the “despised” Darden tax (10% of revenues rolled back to the University, which is a much smaller tax than at other universities like Michigan (closer to 25%); although evidently, per the Hook article, if UCLA’s business school goes independent they would pay nothing; can’t imagine why a university president would let that happen). </p>
<p>In any event, given that this putsch eminated from Darden, it is probably safe to say that Sullivan was not looking to increase the funding there.</p>
<p>Northwesty, re “eat what you kill,” I do not think that is a fair reading of her proposal (although again it was very oblique and hard to decipher). But it is doubtful that a life-long academic like Sullivan, would want to foster that type of “entrepreneurial environment” and/or that Darden alums would oppose that. Instead, it is much more likely that an educator like Sullivan would want to re-allocate resources in favor of the College (especially at the second year and beyond level, which is where it appears she was focusing her attention). </p>
<p>It appears that UVA is at a cross roads. It used to be a Top 15 school across the board (save for med and eng’g) Now it seems that law and Darden, with the help of loads of money from their independence, are moving into the top 5 level of grad schools, while the University is slipping form the mid teens to the mid twenties again largely based on funding. </p>
<p>There is definitely a benefit to having a great business and law school at the university. But, in my view, there is an even larger benefit to the business and law school from their association with Mr. Jefferson’s university. I simply do not believe Darden would be as good (or be able to attract faculty) without the ambiance of the grounds and if it were up to me and Darden gave the University an ultimatum about the tax, I would say the day you stop paying the tax is the day you can move to Staunton. </p>
<p>I hope at the end of all this UVA’s leaders will come up with a program of resource allocation that helps the College get back to its Top 15 status and does not force it to gut prestige (albeit money losing) programs like Classics.</p>
<p>UVA has possibly joined the ranks of William and Mary in selling out a President, but it appears UVA may have sold out two if you count Thomas Jefferson. Of course, Jefferson would have started spinning when a woman was named President. A restraining order should be filed in his name to stop UVA from invoking his name. The push towards privatization is infiltrating public education from elementary through higher ed and Wall Street has unlimited money to see it through. </p>
<p>Perhaps a new book is in the offing - UVA: Becoming Darden’s B – ch.</p>