<p>from the Washington Post:</p>
<p>At</a> U-Va., tensions between Sullivan and Dragas hit a new boiling point - The Washington Post</p>
<p>Why was Dragas reappointed after the complete mess that she caused? For the good of the university, she must go. I have been following this as the parent of an admitted OOS student…this does not leave a very good impression on our DS or us.</p>
<p>Bluebug, fully agree, this doesn’t quite encourage prospective students & parents. We’re in a similar position (also OOS), and UVA had been at the top of the list last summer. I’m reading this and feeling very glad that we’d already decided to cross UVA off the list.</p>
<p>The majority of the student body and faculty want nothing to do with Dragas. I think there has always been tension between the board and students, but Dragas really brought it up a notch and into public view. I still maintain that I don’t know why Sullivan would choose to take back a position that clearly is making her frustrated and unhappy because the people she works with do not want her there (the board… not the faculty/students), and I have no idea why Dragas was reappointed. UVA would be better if Dragas left for sure, and I think for Sullivan it would be better for her to continue her career somewhere less frustrating. She knew she had her work cut out for her as the first female president, but who would have guessed that a female would be the one making the most trouble for her??</p>
<p>" I still maintain that I don’t know why Sullivan would choose to take back a position that clearly is making her frustrated and unhappy because the people she works with do not want her there (the board… not the faculty/students)"</p>
<p>I agree hazelorb, I thought she should have cut and run, but it is because of the faculty/students that she came back. She is such a class act and obviously cares deeply for those two groups at UVA. I have to think she has had second thoughts, though, now that Dragas yet again has overstepped her bounds and has mandated this new list of “goals”.<br>
Seriously, what were they thinking when they re-appointed her?</p>
<p>65 goals (see Post article)…are you kidding me!!! How many goals do you think Dragas has in her job?</p>
<p>The Governor blew it, AGAIN!!!</p>
<p>And the idiots in the House and Senate backed him up. Vote them out of office first chance you get.</p>
<p>The problem at UVA was, and continues to be, structural and not personal or personnel.</p>
<p>UVA has a sub-optimal system for its board governance and that system has not been changed: </p>
<ol>
<li><p>The way the BOV structure is set up, it gets populated overwhelmingly by in-state alumni who happen to have been contributors to the current governor’s campaign. That’s an extremely narrow pool of people to select board members from. What was/is desperately lacking is a seat or two earmarked for a lifelong higher ed professional. None of this would have happened if one of the BOVs was a ex-president of an elite university. Someone who can say (to a Sullivan or a Dragas or both) “well, when I was running Stanford, what we used to do was ________”. The legislature did add a board member seat like this for the medical center (currently filled by an MD from Hopkins). More of that please.</p></li>
<li><p>The open meeting law and FOIA requirements need to be dialed back. The board members need much more ability to confer without having to hold an open meeting. The whole Sullivan debacle, imo, was driven by the need to discuss/decide Sullivan’s future without tripping up on open meetings. Transparency is generally a good thing, but too much is bad. Some sausage really does need to be made in private. How would you be able to do your job if every email you sent was cc-ed to the Washington Post?</p></li>
</ol>
<p>FWIW, imo the right thing to do would have been to can BOTH Sullivan and Dragas.</p>
<p>northwesty, while I agree with you about the media’s limitations, the actions that were taken last summer only caused the scrutiny to be made worse. There is no going back on that now as far as I am concerned bc it seemed as if the story had the “scandal” factor, and we all know how today’s media relishes that. </p>
<p>Why “can” President Sullivan now? Honestly, what I don’t understand is why she was hired in the first place if her actions and plans are/were seen to be unacceptable so soon after being named President. By all accounts, she is a very transparent, honest and open person and was very forthright in speaking to what she felt needed to be done to improve UVA without losing what makes it a great university. </p>
<p>The whole thing still stinks to high Heaven.</p>
<p>The good news is that The Dragas is only Rector for a few more months, because of term limits. The bad news is we are stuck with her on the Board for another 3.5 years, thanks to the Guv and 2/3rds of the Legislature. </p>
<p>I just looked - there were already 450 comments about this article on the Post website, and about 90% were in favor of Sullivan. Many of the pro-Dragas comments were the same couple people posting over and over again on the site.</p>