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The denial of Dragas

An alumnus offers advice on how to ensure Helen Dragas is not reappointed to the Board

As a participant in UVa Alumni for Responsible Corporate Governance, I continue receiving questions from students about Helen Dragas and the Board of Visitors. Students ask how they can help assure that Ms. Dragas is not confirmed for a second term on the Board.

University students who reside in Virginia can play a crucial role in persuading Virginia’s General Assembly to decline approval of Ms. Dragas’s nomination for a second Board term.

University students hail from every Senatorial and House District in the Commonwealth. Many of you are voting age. You have parents, other relatives and friends who are voting constituents. Some of these people are also University alumni; all of them should care about whether U.Va. has proper corporate governance.

Enlist all these people in a concerted effort to email, phone and even visit their Senators and Delegates. We need people from every district in the Commonwealth to participate.

The message is straightforward, and can be delivered in one sentence: Do not approve Ms. Dragas for another term on the University’s Board.

For a one-page summary to back up this request, go here https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/445407-uva-alumi-for-resp-corp-gov-legis-br-09042012-3.html or here http://wuvaonline.com/fourteen-alumni-follow-up-on-open-letter-claim-u-va-s-governing-crisis-still-remains/

For a longer discussion of the issues, go here https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/445409-alum-opn-ltr-bov-corpgov-08082012.html or here http://www.readthehook.com/open-letter-bov-several-prominent-uva-alumni..

Start talking to your parents, friends and acquaintance now. Over Thanksgiving, really press your relatives and friends to join this effort. Use social media and old-fashioned face-to-face discussions.

You and your relatives and friends in Virginia should contact your own Senators and Delegates each week through November, December and January. The next General Assembly session starts in January and runs for several weeks.

Contacts from constituents when the General Assembly is in session are particularly important because the Senators and Delegates feel the impact as they prepare to vote on the Board nominations.

You must sustain the effort. If you do, we will succeed.

Post comments and reports of progress here http://hoosuniversity.org/ and here https://reformtheuvabov.wordpress.com/.

The General Assembly has a statutory responsibility under Virginia law to supervise the Board when it goes awry. The Board has and is breaching corporate fiduciary duties of due care and of fair dealing, as recent Board interactions with the University’s accrediting agency (and Randal Kirk’s Washington Post interview, available at http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/u-vas-sullivan-was-hired-as-an-interim-ex-board-member-says/2012/10/29/58ebeba2-201f-11e2-afca-58c2f5789c5d_print.html) show.

To people around the US, the fact that Ms. Dragas remains on the Board is the most visible sign that the University continues to be mismanaged at the top corporate level. The damage that her continued membership on the Board causes to the University’s reputation and to the effectiveness of its ongoing operations is palpable.

One example: The University’s accrediting agency is accusing the University of continuing violations of corporate governance integrity standards. The accusations relate specifically to the Board’s attempt to fire President Sullivan and to the Board’s refusal since then to offer sensible reasons for the abortive coup. Mr. Kirk’s Washington Post interview inadvertently supports the accrediting agency’s reasons for pursuing the investigation into Ms. Dragas’ role in particular.

For the University’s students from out-of-state, please keep up your interest and involvement in changing how the Board sees its role and how it operates. You will find ways to help, but for the next three months, success is in the hands of your in-state colleagues.

Democracy works.

Richard D. Marks is a 1966 graduate of the College and one of 14 members of UVa Alumni for Responsible Corporate Governance.

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