To say these are gloomy times for supporters of higher education would be an understatement. With $6.5 million in funding to be cut in the governor’s most recent budget, the University’s reprieve from the quixotic task of doing more with less remains elusive. In addition to these new financial challenges, the Board of Visitors faces persistent questions about the University’s policies on sexual misconduct, staff compensation and resources for minorities, among other issues. Given the importance of these divisive issues, it is necessary for the Board to hear from as many voices as possible as it debates how to address University concerns. The first step toward a more inclusive and democratic model of decision-making should be opening Board meetings to public comment.
One of the first moves of the Board at the onset of the Academic Year was to propose a revision to its Statement of Expectations to all but ban public dissent. While protests from elected officials like State Senator Creigh Deeds and others led to the Board rejecting the controversial language, that the draft was even introduced suggests a worrying lack of introspection after President Sullivan’s firing and reinstatement in 2012. Since the Board has sadly not learned the same lessons from two years ago that many others did, allowing community members to weigh in on the body’s consequential decisions in real time would help the Board and the University better facilitate mutually-beneficial channels of communication.
None of this is to say the only motivation for opening up meetings to public comment should be to check the Board’s more dubious policies. This past session, the Board took the promising step of establishing a new standing committee on Diversity and Inclusion. The committee’s newly minted mission statement reads that it “shall encourage and support an atmosphere at the University that ensures diverse members of the University of Virginia and Charlottesville community are treated equally and fairly.” Though these goals are undoubtedly commendable, their intangible nature makes their fulfillment hard to measure. There is no better way to address this dilemma than to let the Board hear voices of people who can speak to their personal experiences.
Student Representative to the Board of Visitors Meg Gould noted in an email, “The Rector met with students” during the most recent Board meeting to listen to “student concerns from a variety of perspectives” including those of UFUSED and the Minority Rights Coalition. While there’s no disagreeing Rector Martin’s gesture was a positive one, many of the University’s students are affiliated with no CIOs whatsoever or interact with them in a very tangential way. Allowing students the option of coming to talk directly to the Rector and the Board as whole would bring the University meaningfully closer to the Jeffersonian ideal of civic engagement.
When asked why a public comment portion of Board meetings does not exist, Gould pointed to time constraints as the main reason. Board members’ schedules should certainly be taken into account when designing meeting agendas. That said, the relative rarity of Board meetings gives students few opportunities to observe, much less weigh in on, the contentious debates that profoundly affect their lives. From limiting the length of a public comment period (to an hour, for example) to having a sign-up list with a fixed number of spots, there are multiple avenues for a compromise between total silence from students and community members at meetings and making Board members sit through hours of unstructured commentary. Though there may be some minor logistical obstacles to implementing a public forum initially, Gould expressed openness to the idea and shared hope that “public comment could bring forth valuable concerns or ideas.” If the Board were to introduce such a segment this semester, it would go a long way toward healing the still raw wounds over the events of two years ago.
In a piece for The New Republic published about the initial aftermath of the Sullivan firing, Kevin Carey noted, “A university governed entirely by wealthy businesspeople steeped in a culture of corporate strategy memos will reflect the peculiar perspectives of the modern rich.” The University has made some recent steps in the right direction with its greater rhetorical gestures toward diversity and inclusion, but with the painful AccessUVa cuts last year and a stubborn inability to move on from the mindset that produced a PR disaster in 2012, the Board of Visitors would do itself and the University a great favor to fully open itself up to students, faculty and community members who care deeply about the University’s future. It might take the form of only a couple hours every few months, but a chance for public comment would hold symbolic weight of enormous worth.
Gray Whisnant is an Opinion Columnist for The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at g.whisnant@cavalierdaily.com.
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