The University of Virginia's Board of Visitors named a new president Friday — despite Gov.-elect Abigail Spanberger asking it to pause the search until she filled multiple vacant board seats.
The board chose Scott Beardsley, dean of UVA's Darden School of Business since 2015. The Washington Post reported Thursday that he would likely be the pick.
"UVA is exceptionally well-positioned for the future, to lead and to innovate, and I am as optimistic as ever about our shared future," Beardsley said after the unanimous vote. "It is the honor of my professional life to serve this university."
Beardsley, who holds a doctorate in higher education management from the University of Pennsylvania, is UVA's longest-serving dean, in his third term leading Darden, the public university's graduate business school.
Before joining UVA, he was a senior partner at the multinational consulting firm McKinsey & Company, where he worked for 26 years and was a member of the company's global board. In 2017, he wrote Higher Calling: the Rise of Nontraditional Leaders in Academia, which explores how the changing landscape of American higher education affects the skills that make for successful educational leaders.
Beardsley will replace Jim Ryan, who stepped down from the role in June under pressure from President Donald Trump's administration. In a November letter to the public university's faculty senate, Ryan posed questions about whether some of the pressure was influenced by board members and/or outgoing Gov. Glenn Youngkin's administration.
Spanberger, a UVA alumna, wrote to board members after winning November's election, asking for them to wait to pick a new president until she could fill the board, which currently sits only Youngkin appointees.
UVA's board is typically made up of 17 voting members who are appointed by the governor and confirmed by the General Assembly for four-year terms.
Youngkin's last five UVA board appointees were rejected by the Democrat-led Senate Privileges and Elections Committee; in November, the Supreme Court of Virginia declined to hear an appeal by outgoing Attorney General Jason Miyares, who argued that only the full General Assembly had the power to block the appointments.
Without a full board, Spanberger wrote, the board is "in violation of statutory requirements in crucial respects."
In the Nov. 12 letter, Spanberger also told the board its recent actions have "severely undermined the public's and the University community's confidence in the Board's ability to govern productively, transparently, and in the best interests of the University."
Spanberger wrote in the letter, which was also addressed to Rector Rachel Sheridan and Vice Rector Porter Wilkinson, that she was concerned the board situation could "impact the legitimacy of the current search" for president.
The day after Spanberger sent her letter, Youngkin sent his own to Spanberger. In it, he claimed her letter to the board "was riddled with hyperbole and factual errors and impugns both the Board of Visitors and the presidential search underway."
Youngkin said the board hired the same executive search firm used to pick Ryan, accusing the governor-elect of trying to "bully or micromanage" UVA's board.
In November, Ryan sent a letter to UVA's faculty senate sharing his account of his resignation. Ryan wrote that Board of Visitors members Paul Manning and Rachel Sheridan told him the US Department of Justice called for him to step down or UVA could lose federal grant money and face other risks.
Earlier this month, UVA's interim president, Paul Mahoney, defended the university's agreement with the DOJ to state lawmakers as one that won't cost taxpayers. The agreement indefinitely paused federal inquiries into claims that UVA didn't end diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and that its hiring and admissions process used race as a factor.
On social media, Youngkin congratulated Beardsley and thanked the board and search committee for conducting a "robust, world-class search process." Spanberger's press team did not respond to requests for comment Friday.
Lt. Gov.-elect Ghazala Hashmi released a statement that echoed Spanberger's previous comments. "A board that is incomplete, particularly during a transition between administrations, cannot credibly claim the full authority or legitimacy required to appoint a president whose tenure will extend well beyond the current governor's term," she said. "Proceeding under these circumstances weakens the integrity of the process and invites questions about whether political expediency is being placed ahead of sound governance."
In his remarks after being appointed, Beardsley thanked the board, Ryan and Mahoney, and said he was looking forward to working closely with the UVA community, faculty and students.
He also said the university and higher education is facing "high tension times," but reassured the room: "I stand before you as a mission-driven leader. I am not a politically-driven leader."
Outside the board's special meeting Friday, protestors expressed dismay at Beardsley's appointment.
"I'm horrified at the idea of a McKinsey former executive being elected the next president [of] our university, because it doesn't align with the values of transparency, accountability and self-governance that I, as a union member and as a faculty, really believe in," said Victoria Baena, an assistant professor of English who attended the protest in her own capacity.
Ian Mullins, associate professor of sociology and vice chair of the faculty committee of UVA's United Campus Workers of Virginia chapter, told VPM News that Beardsley is seen as a consultant, not an academic and "does not understand how academia runs."
"This is not the way to organize a decentralized university like UVA, and as we understand it, he has very little interest in entertaining faculty governance or any form of shared governance," Mullins said. "I believe he's being brought in to kind of unify control under the president's office and to further minimize the UVA community."
"I have serious reservations about a leader who would come into a university that has voiced its displeasure with a process so thoroughly," said MC Forelle, an assistant professor of engineering and chair of the UCWVA-UVA faculty committee. "That leader already is demonstrating that they have no consideration for self-governance at the university, no consideration for the ways that their constituents or their community voices their needs and their desires."
Beardsley called the vetting process "incredibly rigorous and thorough" during his prepared remarks at the meeting. He later detailed the process in a brief gaggle with reporters, saying that he doesn't know who nominated him or when, but he believes it happened likely in August or September.
There was a 28-person special committee that oversaw interviews with the pool of final candidates, some of whom Beardsley said he knew.
He described interviews in Washington, DC, as a "true grilling," saying he answered "a lot" of questions. After more rounds of interviews, Beardsley said he got a call: "I was headed off to play some tennis, and my phone rang, and it was Rachel Sheridan saying, 'You're our choice for president, but by the way, can you come on Thursday?' But I thought this is going to be much later, so that's what happened, and here I am today."
Del. Katrina Callsen (D–Charlottesville) told reporters that she and others are working on legislation "that will make it so that this cannot happen again, and that the BOV governance structure makes it so that you are held accountable for the decisions that you make."
"We're not without the capability to act," she said. "There are legal levers that we can pull, and then also we're gonna have a new governor. And Youngkin has set the precedent that you can let go of BOV members, and that just might be what needs to happen come January. Pretty big lever."
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