The Board of Visitors will convene Wednesday to Friday to vote on renaming Alderman Library as The Edgar Shannon Library, as well as discuss the completion of the “Honor the Future” $5 billion fundraising campaign. Also on the agendas are the plans for a North Grounds parking garage and Darden student housing, as well as a longer discussion with University leadership about artificial intelligence.
The Board — made up of 17 members and 10 committees — meets quarterly each year to discuss the University’s long-term goals and vote on major changes. Their last meetings were held in December where they discussed raising undergraduate tuition, the demolition of buildings on the Ivy Corridor and policies on when the University should speak on social and political issues.
The Buildings and Grounds Committee will vote Thursday to rename Alderman Library to The Edgar Shannon Library in honor of the University’s fourth president, who initiated the beginnings of coeducation and racial integration at the University. The Board tabled a proposal to rename the library during their December meeting, postponing the vote until this week.
Though University members have advocated for the name change for years, the re-opening of the library in January, after almost four years of renovations, has spurred even more debates.
Student Council members passed a resolution to support an open letter urging the Board to change the name due to Alderman’s history of racist beliefs and contributions to eugenicist practices at the University. The letter has over 1,400 signatures from the University community.
The renaming proposal, discussed by the Board in their December meeting, included keeping plaques dedicated to Alderman and renaming the main entrance Alderman Hall to “ensure the legacy of President Alderman is preserved.”
University President Jim Ryan first addressed the possibility of changing the name in 2019, before John Unsworth, University Dean of Libraries, submitted a formal name change request to the University’s Naming and Memorial Committee, a group formed by Ryan in February 2021 to study the contextualization of statues and buildings on Grounds.
The Buildings and Grounds Committee will also consider plans for building a North Grounds parking garage. The proposed site will be at the intersection of Massie Road and Copeley Road and will provide event parking for John Paul Jones arena and nearby athletics venues. The garage will require the demolition of eight buildings in the Copeley apartments, which currently provide housing for graduate students.
Additionally, the Buildings and Grounds Committee will vote on the designs of student housing for the Darden School of Business which will provide 218 units and 348 beds to support Darden students. The Board reviewed the schematic designs of the housing project at their December meeting and provided feedback.
The Advancement Committee will also convene Thursday to discuss the completion and success of the “Honor the Future” campaign. The University surpassed their goal of $5 billion on Dec. 22, 18 months ahead of its June 2025 target.
The campaign was launched in 2019 to raise funds for the University’s pillars of education, democracy and research, as part of Ryan’s goal to be the best public university by 2030.
The Academic and Student Life Committee convenes Thursday to vote on the discontinuation of four Education Specialist degree programs in the School of Education and Human Development, as well as the discontinuation of the Master of Arts in Slavic Languages and Literatures in the College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences. Each program was recommended by their respective schools to be discontinued after limited enrollments in previous years.
The Finance Committee will meet Friday morning to approve financial plans for several projects, including the proposed Institute of Biotechnology. Located at Fontaine Research Park, the institute will provide modern laboratory space for research and partnerships with biotechnology companies, as well as a cafe and conference center. The estimated project budget is $350 million, of which $100 million will come from private philanthropy.
After individual committee meetings, the full Board will convene Friday where they will recognize Lillian Rojas, student member of the Board and fourth-year Batten student, for her service to the Board. Rojas has offered student perspectives to the Board over the last year and will end her term next month.
The Board also plans to speak extensively with University leadership about the challenges and opportunities presented by artificial intelligence, although no further details about this upcoming conversation have been released.
All meetings will be available to watch via livestream. Detailed agendas for each meeting are available on the Board of Visitors’ website.
CORRECTION: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that the Minority Rights Coalition authored the open letter that Student Council urged students to support. The Minority Rights Coalition did not author this letter and it was instead written by a collective of students unaffiliated with any specific student organization. This error has been updated.
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