I’ve been reluctant to talk about the crazy coup at the University of Virginia, because university politics are so complicated in general. They’re generally all about who knows where the bodies are buried, even moreso than with usual politics (maybe partly because they don’t get much media scrutiny, so the bodies’ locations never become publicly available). But this thing at University of Virginia seems more like a simple case of idiot board members run amok. As much as I hate WaPo, they’ve done a great job of covering the story, and their editorials have been good too.
Governor Bob McDonnell has handled it well too. “Clean up your fucking mess or you’re all fired” was exactly the right thing to tell the board.
Anyway, the jig’s up and the president has been reinstated:
The University of Virginia governing board voted unanimously Tuesday to reinstate Teresa Sullivan as president, more than two weeks after board leaders had forced her to resign.
Being a college president is at least 50% finances and public relations (probably more). The board really shat the bed here, because they made the university look bad and pissed off donors (Sullivan was quite popular). Even if their ideas about how to change the university were good ones — I think all the stuff about the “reputation gap” at University of Virginia is on the money, the rest of what they said mostly sounded dumb — this was an incredibly stupid thing for them to have done. I think McDonnell should probably fire them all anyway.
General Stuck
When somebody mentions university politics, It always reminds of the remade movie, DOA, the one with Dennis Quaid. University of Hell.
DougJ
I hope Punchy shows up for this thread. It’s perfect for him.
Jeff(the other one)
Having followed this story for a few weeks as it was playing out I have to say Thank goodness that the BOV realized how badly they were played, and reinstated Sullivan.
Now is the time for evident Koch-sucker, and ueberbitch Rector Helen Draghas to do the right thing and resign, and never darken the doors of a university boardroom again.
Valdivia
was this really about Goldman Sachs as I some some early reports speculate?
SamR
Great WaPo editorials?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/the-u-va-president-drama-is-it-the-queen-bee-scenario/2012/06/25/gJQATn6r2V_story.html
As LGM put it—Shorter WaPo editorial: Catfight!
MikeTheZ
Of course UVa made a mess of this. They follow the example set by their football team.
Go Hokies!
evap
Sayre’s Law: Academic politics is the most vicious and bitter form of politics, because the stakes are so low.
Maude
OT
Claire McCaskill is not going to the Dem convention.
What’s going on with this?
DougJ
@Valdivia:
I don’t think so.
Martin
tl;dr version:
The state has gutted the public university funding and the board is pissed that the university isn’t remaining competitive with the private research schools on salary and investment in emerging areas. “Why aren’t the governors austerity measures causing you to invest more?” So the President gets the can for not investing the money the governor cut from the budget.
Fucktards. Every public in the nation is going through this same exercise. The only viable path for any of the publics is to go private, through either policy or action.
Jeff(the other one)
@Maude: She thinks that if she skips the convention then the she will demonstrate her “independence” and the wingnuts and republicans wont try to tie her to Obama. Fat Chance. She has a (D) at the end of her title, so it’s all the same to them. She’ll just piss off more of her base that she will need in November. Oh well, live and learn. I just hope it wont cost us a senate seat in the next congress
Ben Cisco
@Maude: Line is queueing up.
WV’s headline pols made the decision to bolt earlier, and here in NC, state GOP leaders are crowing about the defections:
Running like scalded dogs, and they’re all gonna wind up with fleas anyway.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@Maude:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/06/26/1103387/-Claire-McCaskill-Skips?detail=hide
Punchy
@DougJ: But what does Sullivan think of a Sullivan Mulligan?
Raven
@MikeTheZ:
Hokie, Hokie, Hokie, Hy!
Tech, Tech, VPI
SiubhanDuinne
@Maude:
That just strikes me as imbecilic. She’s going to piss off Democrats, who will see her as trying to distance herself from Obama (or to not be a Democrat) and I can’t imagine that she’s going to persuade one single Republican or independent to vote for her based on her decision to stay away from the convention. Where’s the upside for her? Unless she plans to switch parties soon, I don’t get it.
Dave
Reputation gap? What?
Valdivia
@DougJ:
thanks I thought the story was bad enough without the hand of Goldman Sachs speculation.
piratedan
@Maude: blue dog fuckeduppedness…. Dems are askeert of being seen with the “polarizing” black politician, so they bypass the convention to “distance” themselves from the “nearness”. They’re going the way of the moderate Republicans, into oblivion…because being seen as aiding and abetting the bastards that are holding our nation hostage due to their infantile need for acquiring power and ignoring the country is somehow better than having the local bigots whisper “niggerlover” behind their hands in disdain. After all, this same tactic has worked so well for Blanche Lincoln that naturally Claire has to follow the example of Mssr. Manchin. the scary thing is, she’s STILL better than anyone the R’s put up and it’s a case of having to slowly bleed the festering boil of an issue that some people have with skin pigmentation before sanity can return.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@SiubhanDuinne:
She’s not a party switcher.
She’s is a coward tho.
Steeplejack
@DougJ:
Kudos and some pedant love for “The board really shat the bed here.” Other foul-mouthed front-pagers, take note.
ETA: Did a Google search for
"shit the bed" site:balloon-juice.com
and got 11,600 results. Only seven for “shat the bed,” and two of those were this post. LOL.Odie Hugh Manatee
@Maude:
Just another weak-kneed Democrat knuckling under pressure to avoid looking like a Democrat who supports the leader of their party and the nation. They think that stiffing the party and the President makes them look more attractive to voters in their state.
Ask John about it, the Democrats in his state are leading the way.
Punchy
@Maude: Claire McNoSkill is not winning re-election, even if she marries Dave Koch and has sex w/ Rush Limbaugh’s pool boy. Mizzou will be solid red this year, save the governorship.
Raven
@Maude:
Montana Democratic Sen. Jon Tester is also skipping the convention, the Hill reports. His Republican challenger, Rep. Denny Rehberg, is skipping the Republican convention where Mitt Romney is expected to receive his party’s presidential nomination.
Maude
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage:
I can’t make myself go there.
There was a tweet that the Republican did for McCaskill: You can run from the convention but you can’t hide from Obama.
Not clever, but I can see this method of attack starting.
Why, even his own party doesn’t support him.
Weenie wanking cowards.
HeartlandLiberal
Yeah, man, here in Indiana, those idiots on the board of trustees at Purdue hired a governor with no advanced degree and absolutely no experience in academic to be the next president of Purdue.
The governor of the state of Indiana oughta pull the same hardball tactics on those trustees.
Am I right? Oh, wait……
JasonF
@Valdivia: We don’t really know if Goldman’s fingerprints are on this since the Board of Visitors has been … what’s the polar opposite of ofrthcoming? Anyway, I don’t know if it was Goldman per se, but the Cavalier Daily (UVA’s student newspaper) use FOIA to get at some of the emails among the Board of Visitors and they revealed conversations among several members of the Board and several prominent alums from Wall Street who were basically looking to monetize the University — cut unprofitable programs like German and Classics, introduce more online education, and basically steer the University away from an educational mission and toward a profitability mission.
I’m sure Dragas and her supporters would argue that if the University isn’t profitable, then it can’t educate anybody, but the emails reveal a particularly mercenary attitude toward the role of the University that, needless to say, did not sit well with students, faculty, or alums.
Regardless, as an alumnus of the University, I’m glad President Sullivan is back. Wahoowa!
Valdivia
@JasonF:
thanks for the detailed information. I had seen something about it I just didn’t know how seriously to take it. As I said the story was bad enough without the Goldman bit.
and yes, woo hoo! :)
beltane
@Raven: At least in that case they’re both skipping their parties respective conventions. What is McCaskill trying to prove? That she’s a friend to none and a backstabber to all?
gwangung
@JasonF: Hm. Interesting.
Work in fundraising at a school that has Goldman alums; generally, they’re not that stupid about what a university is about (although some of them….).
It’s certainly true that state support of public schools is dwindling…and that it’s having unintended consequences (fiscal conservatives are particularly self-deceiving about this). Generally, though, the impulse has been more to bump up fundraising from individuals….
Raven
@beltane: I never liked her whether she goes to the stupid fucking convention or not.
Michael Bersin
@Maude:
Blue Girl on Claire McCaskill:
beltane
@Raven: She’s the new Blanche Lincoln. So-called Democrats like this are part of the reason why we can’t have nice things.
gwangung
@Michael Bersin: Hm. It would help if she actually SAID these were the reasons.
Michael Bersin
@Punchy:
“…Mizzou will be solid red this year, save the governorship…”
The governorship is already red:
As one liberal Democratic state senator stated at an outstate county party committee gathering, “Jay Nixon is the best republican governor we’ve ever had.” The crowd got it.
Michael Bersin
@gwangung:
She won’t.
Capri
@HeartlandLiberal:
There was one big exception – I don’t know anybody at Purdue who isn’t happy to see our current president go. She was mostly ineffective, had poor political instincts, and rubbed many the wrong way.
(Case in point, a friend of mine who was “just” a staff person was once assigned to sit next to her at a function. She’s a very outgoing sort and tried to initiate conversation with the President several times throughout the meal. The president refused to speak to her. Rumor was that when then-senator Evan Bayh was on campus for some reason during Obama’s campaign, she was too busy to make time to meet him when he wanted to discuss student loan issues).
As a matter of fact, one might say Daniels was a “negative hire”, going for a person who is the most opposite of an unpopular individual who is currently in the position.
fasteddie9318
@Maude: She joins Tester and Manchin in not going to the convention. I’m going to the DSCC website right now to donate money that they can then shower on those three to the exclusion of actual Democrats in other Senate races! Winning!
MTiffany
It’s all about the ‘strategic dynamism,’ (WETF that means) doncha know!
gogol's wife
@JasonF:
I love this idea that programs like German and Classics are supposed to be “profitable.” I guess we should just give up on the most envied university system in the world because the businessperson trustees don’t know what a university is. This is so sick.
scav
Honey? I downsized the kids, they weren’t a profit center any more. Don’t worry, I outsourced two new cute ones, they’re working out of a call center in Bangalore so they’ll be able to keep in touch for Mother’s day and wire us our cut of their paychecks.
trollhattan
Speaking of universities, UC now must release the other pepper-hosing cop names [pending endless appeals, of course].
http://blogs.sacbee.com/crime/archives/2012/06/uc-must-reveal-names-of-officers-in-pepper-spray-incident-judge-rules.html
Felanius Kootea
I can’t imagine that Rector Helen Dragas will be on the board much longer. Her co-conspirator on the board already resigned. When as rector, you cause top professors to resign and wealthy donors to hold their checkbooks close, you’ve pretty much fucked up and need to go.
Jeff(the other one)
@Felanius Kootea: Not to mention orchestrating an incredibly amateurish palace coup.
What do they say, “If you strike at the King, be sure to kill him.”
burnspbesq
Dargas pretty much has to go. If Sullivan didn’t make it an explicit condition of agreeing to stay on, it’s obviously implicit.
The Goldman connection, such as it was, is that a Goldman-managed private equity fund is an early stage investor in an online-learning company that was being looked at by some of the anti-Sullivan forces as a potential service provider. Not exactly “Goldman Sachs is taking over UVa.”
Martin
@JasonF:
What alternative is there? If the state won’t subsidize the in-state students and the students, parents, and public don’t want tuition hikes that are creeping ever closer to private school tuition, what’s left?
We can’t take more students because we don’t have the money to build classrooms. We’re literally out of chairs to put students in. We can’t take fewer because we still need to run the courses even with fewer seats full. The only option is to cut programs so that courses don’t need to taught, and to move things online so we can bypass the need for construction.
Many publics are falling into the death spiral of extended time to degree, which causes students to pile up because they can’t graduate. CalState has eliminated freshmen admission for the Spring and will only take transfer students with an AA transfer degree. They decided there was no point admitting tens of thousands of students when there are no classrooms to put the students in and no money to build classrooms or online programs or any of the other things to alleviate the problem.
Schools like UCLA are only getting about 5% of their funding from the state as it is.
burnspbesq
One of life’s little ironies: Coase was teaching at UVa when he wrote “The Problem of Social Cost.”
DougJ
@SamR:
That’s not an editorial.
Jean
@SiubhanDuinne: Two words: Blanche LIncoln. Worked so well for her.
Jean
@MTiffany: Strategic Dynamism is the opposite of the other more tired phrase, “strategic planning.” It’s a corporate model of dramatic overhaul, diametrically opposed to incremental changes and attracts big fat narcissists to the presidency. Dragas, like Sullivan, got a unanimous vote of support, most likely to save face for her. She should go. McDonnell is a coward, didn’t weigh in until the writing was on the wall and will do nothing. Dragas should resign for the way Sullivan was ousted.
BrklynLibrul
Like Jason, I’m a UVa alum. The real story here is how the deans, faculty, students, alums, employees and friends of the University came together to push back on the 1%’s “plan” for the future (including the sacking of Terry Sullivan). Folks from all over the world were e-mailing in pictures of themselves holding signs that supported re-instatement. WaPo’s education blogger is calling the BoV’s reversal a triumph of the 99% — and it’s easy to imagine a far different outcome in a world without Facebook and Twitter.
So, yes, it’s a big deal — a grassroots virtuosic feat, and one that has both stunned and moved me. Wahoowa!
RSA
@Martin:
I’ve heard talk about this, but I don’t think it’s ever happened. In my state, for example, the public university system is described in the constitution, which would make it tough to just go private. Further, the state owns university property, both land and buildings. And then there’s the status of the faculty as state employees… We’re not in UVa’s situation, with the state providing just 6% or 7% of funding, but I’d guess there are similar if not identical complications.
nevsky42
I don’t give McDonnell too much credit; more than anything else, he kept calling for “civility”, which I understood as “can the faculty and staff at UVa please stop keeping this in the news”?
And given the tongue-bathing Dragas received at the hands of the BOV, I’ll be surprised if McDonnell doesn’t reinstate her next week as well.
Felanius Kootea
@nevsky42: He did kind of force their hand by saying he’d fire all fifteen of them if they didn’t sort out the mess by today. I don’t like him at all, but I thought that was a clear warning to the board.
Elizabelle
@nevsky42:
I am thinking Dragas is too radioactive for reappointment.
FWIW, she was appointed by Tim Kaine, and has mostly supported Democratic politicians.
But resigning would have been classy.
Maybe she’s hoping lotso people will have short memories about her quite memorable tenure as Rector.
nevsky42
@Felanius Kootea: The meeting to discuss Sullivan’s reinstatement had been called before McDonnell’s statement, which came across to the UVa crowd here as a day late and a dollar short.
The faculty’s quick organization of protests, the school newspaper’s revelation that Dragas had been planning to remove Sullivan for months (thanks to e-mails made public through a quick FOIA request), and top donors publicly stating they would not give another cent until Sullivan came back were all more likely factors that forced the board to reconsider…
Honus
@BrklynLibrul: Well, yes all of that grassroots support and then there were the Smiths and the Battens, representing something like 100 million to UVA over the past ten years. (FWIW, I’m a UVA alum and a 40 year C’ville resident)
Joey Maloney
@Elizabelle: Rector? Damn near killed her!
…what? Someone had to say it.