For the second straight year, a bill that would have added a non-voting faculty representative to the Board of Visitors died in the General Assembly last week, succumbing to opposition from the University and other universities in the Commonwealth.
The bill passed the House earlier this month but was voted down Thursday in the Senate's education and health committee.
The proposal required the board of visitors for each public college in the Commonwealth to appoint one faculty representative. Each board would choose its faculty member from a small group of candidates recommended by its school's faculty senate.
The University and other state universities lobbied against the bill, said the bill's sponsor, Del. Steve Landes, R-Weyer's Cave.
The Faculty Senate of Virginia, a group representing faculty senates at universities across the Commonwealth, pressed for passage of the bill, University Faculty Senate Chairman Robert Grainger said.
Support for the bill originated at other Virginia colleges, Grainger said.
"I gather that some of them don't have the relationship between the faculty and the Board of Visitors that we have," University spokeswoman Louise Dudley said.
Grainger agreed the University faculty senate has a strong working relationship with the Board. Nonetheless, he said he has become an enthusiastic supporter of the bill.
"Sending the message that faculty and students are what the University is all about is important," he said, noting that students already have a non-voting representative to the Board.
Many faculty members were upset at a report that appeared in several newspapers saying the University administration had called the faculty a "special interest group," Grainger said.
Board members expressed opposition to a permanent faculty representative on the grounds that it was unnecessary and there are too many groups that could demand representation on the Board. A faculty member could face conflicts of interest because the Board sets faculty salaries and deals with tenure issues, they added.
"I didn't think it would be helpful for the University of Virginia because we already have the chair of the faculty senate invited to attend every meeting" of the Board, University Rector John P. Ackerly III said. "We usually call on the representative of the faculty to make a report."
The provost, representing the faculty, also is present at every meeting.
"Another reason some people oppose it is that the University has thousands of administrative employees," Ackerly said.
Those employees could demand representation.
"Constituency representation is a slippery slope," Board member Gordon F. Rainey Jr. said.
The conflict of interest wouldn't be a problem because the faculty member would not vote, Grainger said.
Landes sponsored the bill that passed the General Assembly two years ago requiring board of visitors to include a student member.
"As a matter of equity, I thought it was appropriate" to include faculty members as well, Landes said.
Landes also sponsored the bill that failed last year to create faculty representatives.
"Eventually the bill's just gonna pass, so they might as well get used to it," he said, adding that he plans to introduce the proposal for a third time next year. "Maybe the third time will be the charm"
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