On Wednesday, University President Jim Ryan joined The Cavalier Daily for an interview ahead of the Board of Visitors meetings this Thursday and Friday, where the 17 members of the corporate Board will vote on various aspects of the University’s long-term strategic goals, such as capital planning, policies and budgeting.
This slate of meetings is the full Board’s first of four for the 2021-2022 academic and fiscal year. Starting this month, the sessions return to their in-person format in the Rotunda, though seating will be limited to avoid crowds. Meetings remain open to online viewing by the public, but the Board does not open opportunities for unscheduled public comment.
Among topics to be discussed are administrators’ priorities for the year, tenets of the 2030 Great and Good strategic plan, ongoing Honor the Future capital campaign and searches for University leadership positions — such as the vacant Dean of Students position.
Ryan’s priorities for the year, which he plans to present to the Board, include promoting health and safety, advancing strategic plan key initiatives, identifying areas for key investment, recruiting and onboarding new leaders and re-engaging with the University community in Charlottesville and beyond.
The University embraced a return to in-person living and learning this fall, welcoming 4,631 new students to Grounds this August. More than 97 percent of students and 93 percent of faculty are vaccinated, as students are required to be vaccinated or obtain a medical or religious exemption by July 1 to live and learn on Grounds. Faculty and staff are encouraged — but not required — to get vaccinated.
The main message Ryan emphasized regarding the University’s current COVID-19 policies — vaccines are effective and important in keeping the community safe.
“There have been breakthrough cases, but they’re still rare, and even when there are breakthrough cases the symptoms are either nonexistent or they’re quite mild,” Ryan said. “As long as that remains the case, I feel really optimistic about the semester. As long as another variant doesn’t come along that is resistant to the vaccine, I think we’re in pretty good shape.”
The University disenrolled 238 students who did not comply with the immunization instructions when classes began, though less than 50 of those individuals had even picked their courses for the semester. Faculty and staff were encouraged — but not required — to get vaccinated.
Weeks before classes convened, University leaders reintroduced a universal indoor masking requirement for vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals that will be reevaluated Oct. 1. Ryan said he senses support for the masking requirement among students and faculty, noting that he hasn’t received many complaints.
“This is always a matter of balancing public safety with the desire to provide as vibrant an opportunity as we can,” Ryan said. “We’re doing our best to follow the science and listen to our medical experts. That’s what we did all last year, and that’s what we’ll do this year.”
Despite the progress, Ryan said he is not ready to “declare victory” given the unpredictable nature of the pandemic.
“I am sure COVID has another few curveballs waiting for us,” Ryan said. “If there’s any pattern to this, just when you think you’ve got your arms around it, you get thrown another curveball.”
The University implemented mandatory weekly prevalence testing for all students last semester, though only unvaccinated students are subject to weekly testing this fall. Students, however, have expressed uncertainty over the University’s COVID-19 protocols and frustration with testing capacity, calling for mandatory testing to be reinstated.
Professors continued to stress the importance of masking up and keeping classmates safe as concerns rose over symptomatic students attending classes. Provost Liz Magill’s office continues to handle guidance for instructors accommodating students who may have to miss class due to COVID-19 symptoms, Ryan said. The office is encouraging instructors to treat the issue the way they would if a student was absent for any other illness-related reason by recording classes or having another student take notes.
With the impact of the pandemic ongoing, Ryan acknowledged the lasting legacy online learning opportunities will maintain higher education. While online and hybrid courses will continue to remain an educational feature, he said the experiential, organic interactions of in-person learning remain essential.
“As much as it showed the possibilities of what you could do online, it sort of showed the value, I think, of a residential experience,” Ryan said.
Online learning provided flexibility in terms of scheduling, creating opportunities for students who weren’t physically on Grounds to continue learning and for guests from around the world to visit classes with greater ease, Ryan said. Referencing online January-term and summer session courses, he said he expects this flexibility to continue to be a part of the education the University offers.
“Our first attention goes to the residential education that we offer here in Charlottesville, but we've been reaching more and more people who never come to Charlottesville or only come to Charlottesville occasionally,” Ryan said. “If we can offer our education to a wider spectrum of potential students, I think that's one really good way to serve the public.”
The University community has also seen a noticeable increase in the number of public safety alerts issued this fall. Since the start of the semester, the University has issued seven “community alerts” — emails from Tim Longo, chief of the University Police Department and vice president of safety and security, which notify the community of nearby incidents. After a University student was accidentally struck by a stray bullet through a bathroom wall at Boylan Heights, Ryan addressed growing safety concerns in a community-wide email.
The University plans to expand University and Charlottesville police presence as well as ambassador presence on Grounds, according to an email sent to the University community by interim Dean of Students Julie Caruccio and Robyn Hadley, vice president and chief student affairs officer. Ambassadors are unarmed individuals who patrol on- and off-Grounds walkways in a reflective, neon uniform. The University also hopes to expand its free, on-demand Safe Ride transportation service.
However, many students — especially students of color — express concern about the presence of police officers in the spaces where they go to class, socialize and go about their lives. Sarandon Elliott, fourth-year College student and committee chair of the Young Democratic Socialists of America chapter at the University, wrote an open letter published Sept. 12 detailing UPD’s repeated, unwelcome attempts to contact her within the last few months.
“By continuing to approach students to request meetings and enter these spaces after multiple students have expressed their discomfort to you, you are actively undermining your ‘good faith’ approach and desire to build bridges with marginalized communities here at the University,” Elliott wrote in the letter.
Throughout the pandemic and the transition back to in-person learning, students voiced discontent with the University’s Counseling and Psychological Services. Most recently, Young Democratic Socialists of America at U.Va. launched a mental health campaign demanding the University provide more robust funding for CAPS and the Women’s Center, end UPD involvement in mental health crisis response and hire a more diverse staff of qualified counselors.
Ryan said he’s in discussions with Hadley about gaps in the University’s mental health services.
“I’ve heard from some students about wait times when they call CAPS, for example, and I’ve also heard from people at CAPS that they actually have availability, so I’m trying to figure out where the disconnect is there,” Ryan said.
Aside from CAPS, Ryan said the University is planning to ramp up programs such as HoosConnected, which brings together transfer students, first-years and second-years in the Connect2Grounds program for weekly conversations surrounding belonging and making meaningful connections on Grounds.
“Providing support for students and ways to find community that help with a general feeling of inclusion and help reduce anxiety by creating connections, I think, in some respects, is just as important as making sure that we have enough counselors,” Ryan said.
The University is home to an increasingly diverse student body. In the first year class, more than 41 percent of students identify as a racial minority, making the Class of 2025 the most racially diverse class in University history.
One of the University’s main strategies in attracting and retaining a diverse student body is “increasing the visibility and availability of scholarships” geared towards minority, low-income and first-generation students, Ryan said.
These include a fund for students who wish to transfer from the Piedmont Virginia Community College to the University and matching programs for the Blue Ridge Scholars program and the University Achievement Award, both of which have “criteria that are designed to increase the diversity of our student body,” he noted.
“Those scholarships have been quite effective, but they have not really had the visibility that I would like to see, and sometimes it's the visibility of those opportunities that encourages people to apply in the first place,” Ryan said.
In his inaugural move as president, Ryan promised free tuition for Virginia families earning less than $80,000 per year, plus free tuition, room and board for undergraduate students whose families earn less than $30,000 per year.
“That's a really easy concept to understand, rather than hearing that we'll cover 100 percent of financial need through a combination of grants, work study and loans, which I think can be confusing or intimidating,” Ryan said.
The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education — a nonpartisan foundation that works to defend the rights of students and faculty at America’s colleges — awards the University a green light rating, meaning that its policies normally protect free speech. This year, however, FIRE ranked the University 22nd for free speech — down from sixth place last year.
Free speech was the subject of much debate over the year, particularly concerning signs that were posted on Lawn room doors last fall and spring that critiqued the University's history of enslavement and inaccessibility, among other issues. On Wednesday afternoon, Housing and Residence Life removed lawn room signs that violated the newly-instituted signage restrictions — which restrict residents to posting signs on message boards narrower than an 8.5 inch piece of paper — including one posted by fourth-year College student Emma Camp which included the full text of the First Amendment.
Ryan emphasized the significance of the statement that the Committee on Free Expression and Free Inquiry drafted which was endorsed by the Board of Visitors in June.
The statement “unequivocally affirms” the University’s commitment to free speech and inquiry, pledging that all views, beliefs and perspectives should be considered without interference.
“My hope is that that message will be spread widely across the university and remind people that the core value of any university, including U.Va., is the protection and promotion of free speech and free inquiry,” Ryan said.
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