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The Sullivan Show

Teresa Sullivan, suddenly ex-president of the University of Virginia, speaks to the trustees. Excerpts:

Sweeping action may be gratifying and may create the aura of strong leadership, but its unintended consequences may lead to costs that are too high to bear.

… Corporate-style, top-down leadership does not work in a great university. Sustained change with buy-in does work.

… [D]eans and provosts at every peer institution are setting aside funds now to raid the University of Virginia next year given the current turmoil on our campus.

… A dramatic top-down reallocation in our general fund, simply to show that we are “changing,” or that we are not “incremental,” seems to me fiscally imprudent, highly alarming to faculty, and unfair to students who expect to get a broadly inclusive education here. I have chosen a lower-risk and more conservative strategy, because I am accountable to the taxpayers and the tuition payers.

If we were to embark on a course of deep top-down cuts, there would also be difficult questions regarding what to cut. A university that does not teach the full range of arts and sciences will no longer be a university. Certainly it will no longer be respected as such by its former peers.

… Fundraising takes time. A new President first has to meet donors and establish trust and rapport. Instability is as alarming to donors as it is to faculty and in the last few days you are already seeing the impact.

Margaret Soltan, June 18, 2012 6:18PM
Posted in: trustees trashing the place

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7 Responses to “The Sullivan Show”

  1. Alan Jacobs Says:
    June 18th, 2012 at 7:28PM

    FWIW, my comments here, after the quote:

    http://ayjay.tumblr.com/post/25394866704/a-dramatic-top-down-reallocation-in-our-general

  2. Margaret Soltan Says:
    June 18th, 2012 at 7:33PM

    Thanks, Alan. That’s my sense of what’s going on at UVa too.

  3. Michael Tinkler Says:
    June 18th, 2012 at 9:23PM

    Anyone who the press identifies as a conservative who wants to cut a Classics or German department is no conservative I recognize. That person is merely a manager.

  4. Shane Street Says:
    June 18th, 2012 at 9:57PM

    John Podhoretz of Commentary Magazine tweeted that for the admin-speak “Sustained change with buy-in does work” she deserves to stay fired.

  5. Ian Says:
    June 19th, 2012 at 6:03AM

    Who cares what John Podhoretz tweets?

  6. Shane Street Says:
    June 19th, 2012 at 7:39AM

    Well, let’s see “Ian”(if indeed that is your real name). I guess the most direct answer is the more than 12,000 people who follow him on Twitter. But I imagine the list would also include readers of Commentary Magazine and the New York Post, and likely the National Review including NROs The Corner. Oh, and me, though I guess that much is obvious to even the most casual observer.

  7. "Ian" Says:
    June 19th, 2012 at 9:18AM

    Thanks for talking me through that, Shane. And the quotation marks around my name are indeed an improvement. Roll Tide!

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