U-Va. board unanimously reinstates Teresa Sullivan as president
By Jenna Johnson, Anita Kumar and Daniel de Vise,
CHARLOTTESVILLE ?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.
The board?s vote to rescind Sullivan?s June 10 resignation completed an unprecedented cycle of events at U-Va. that had plunged the state flagship university into political chaos, with 16 days of mass protests, no-confidence votes and talk of mass faculty defections.
The conflict set virtually the entire university community at odds with governing board, and especially with its leader, Rector Helen E. Dragas. Vice Rector Mark Kington, a key collaborator in her campaign against Sullivan, has already resigned, the conflict?s most prominent casualty.
On Tuesday, Dragas voted for Sullivan?s reinstatement and vowed that the two women would move forward together, just as they had walked across the Grounds together to attend the afternoon meeting.
?We have both come to the conclusion that it is time to bring the U-Va. community together,? Dragas said, to the board room and a live online audience of thousands.
Sullivan, who had been invited to the meeting at the last minute after it became clear she would be reinstated, told the panel, ?Thank you for renewing your confidence in me? I want to partner with you to bring about what?s best for the future of the university.?
Higher education leaders say they have never before seen the president of a major research university forced out and then rehired in quite the same manner.
?This would be a new precedent,? said Molly Corbett Broad, president of the American Council on Education and former president of the University of North Carolina.
Some of the collateral damage may never be undone. Thomas Jefferson?s university has lost wealthy donors, one board member and at least one star professor, computer scientist William Wulf, over Sullivan?s ouster, along with an incalculable toll in academic repute.
Thousands of Sullivan supporters, including much of the university faculty, have demanded that Dragas, too, step down. But the rector has held firm: her vote to reinstate Sullivan on Tuesday was her first overt gesture of defeat. There was no indication that Dragas would resign.
Public university presidents frequently clash with their governing boards. Sullivan?s removal is unusual in that the board appears to have acted alone - - and against a president who enjoyed unusually broad support among faculty, alumni, state leaders and students.
Last week Dragas published a 10-point critique of Sullivan?s two-year tenure, asserting that the former University of Michigan provost had no concrete plan to move the university forward in such key areas as fund-raising and faculty pay.
But many detractors contend Dragas never built a credible case against Sullivan. In the end, the dispute came down to what was described as a ?philosophical difference.? Sullivan sought to bring change to the university from the ground up, through a process of building consensus and empowering individual academic units. Dragas and her allies thought Sullivan was moving far too slowly in an economic climate that demanded swift and decisive action.
As board members filed into the oval meeting room inside the Rotunda before the 3 p.m. meeting began, hundreds gathered on the Lawn outside with signs in support of reinstating Sullivan. Faculty Senate Chairman George Cohen, a law professor, told the crowd, according to his prepared remarks, ?We stand here to watch and to listen. We await action from our Board of Visitors. We seek the answer to a simple question: what will be the future of the University of Virginia look like??
Sullivan, the woman at the center of the conflict, was not scheduled to attend Tuesday?s meeting, and her chair had been removed from the board table. Then, at the last minute, it was added back, and Dragas walked into the meeting with Sullivan.
It was a moment rich in symbolism: the conflict of the past two weeks pitted Dragas, the university?s first female rector, against Sullivan, its first female president. Dragas led the campaign to remove Sullivan and has spent the past days justifying the action by critiquing the Sullivan presidency.
?We never wished or intended to ignite such a reaction,? Dragas told fellow board members. ?I sincerely apologize.?
Earlier Tuesday, Gov. Robert F. McDonnell (R) said he had not advised the 15-member panel how to vote at the special meeting and would support the group whatever it decides.
?I?m not instructing them how to vote and what to do. I think it would be absolutely inappropriate,?? McDonnell said on his monthly call-in show on WTOP radio. ?I want this to be done. My goal is to have finality, but I trust these excellent people on the board to make the right decision.??
But McDonnell had also warned the board that if it did not resolve the leadership crisis on Tuesday, he would remove all 15 members on Wednesday.
McDonnell denounced the ?media frenzy? and the ?chaos on campus?? that ensued. Two weeks of relentless new coverage has uncovered details of a secret campaign to remove Sullivan dating to fall. Most of the criticism targeted Dragas.
?This is the first woman president at U-Va. This is the first woman rector of U-Va.,?? McDonnell said. ?We shouldn?t be demonizing the rector, who is simply the spokesman for what the majority of the board felt.??
McDonnell will have the opportunity to remake the board in the next week, appointing three new members and deciding whether to re-appoint two more. He declined to say Tuesday how he would act.
McDonnell?s office has been inundated with letters and calls ? nearly 5,000 ? but the governor has repeatedly said he would not micromanage the board.
?This is a management decision,?? he said. ?Boards are charged with managing universities. They know more than I do, than any politician, faculty or others know about what the strategic direction of the university and how well the president is doing.??
McDonnell criticized his Democratic predecessor, Timothy M. Kaine, who said last week that Sullivan should be reinstated. Kaine, now a candidate for U.S. Senate, is one of the most prominent politicians to for reinstating Sullivan. Kaine said the board made a mistake by not holding a meeting weeks earlier to vote on whether to remove her.
Asked about Kaine?s stance, McDonnell said: ?He?s politicizing it. This is a management decision. This is not a political decision.??
During his term as governor from 2006-2010, Kaine appointed eight of the 15 voting members of the board, including Dragas. McDonnell appointed the others.
Kumar reported from Richmond and de Vise from Washington.
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