By Derek Quizon | Posted: Friday, November 14, 2014 9:00 pm
BOV UVA protests
The student group UVa Students United demonstrates outside a Board of Visitor meeting on Friday. Students expressed concerns over the public comment period at BOV meetings, tuition freeze and restoration of AccessUVa grant cuts.
About 20 activists gathered outside Friday’s Board of Visitors meeting at the University of Virginia demanding the right to speak to board members in public session.
The activists —students and recent graduates calling themselves UVa Students United — said they want the opportunity to address the board on a variety of issues, including tuition increases, pay for university employees and cuts to the AccessUVa financial aid program.
“All of us had different issues that brought us here,” said Nqobile Mthethwa, a second-year student, just before the meeting.
“We found we had no avenues for addressing those issues with the board.”
Standing outside the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library, the protestors took turns issuing a variety of demands, including greater outreach to minorities and people from lower-income families by the admissions department; in-state tuition for undocumented students covered by Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals; and establishment of a “living wage” for university employees.
“This event is our own public comment period, since the Board of Visitors doesn’t have one,” said Ibby Han, a second-year student.
UVa seeks to keep student debt in check
Average student debt at the University of Virginia has climbed 51 percent in the past decade, according to the university’s own estimates, but remains below national and state averages.
The group already has tried to reach out to individual board members, Mthethwa said, and responses have not been promising. Most members pushed it down the road, she said.
Last month, the group published a letter in The Cavalier Daily calling for public comment periods of up to 90 minutes for each day of board meetings.
“Student engagement in issues directly affecting them is essential to the tradition of student self-governance, a founding tenet of the university,” read the letter. “We are among many students who fully intend to utilize this platform to give input on critical issues, including student debt and the diversity of the student body.”
After making speeches outside the library, protestors came inside to watch a meeting of the full board and held signs calling for a public comment period.
Shortly before the silent protest inside the library, Rector George K. Martin said members had been in touch with the group. Martin said he has asked the board’s Special Committee on Governance and Engagement to take it under consideration.
The committee will hand down a recommendation in February, Martin said.
UVa Students United members said after the meeting that they were hoping for a more immediate response.
Claire Wyatt, a recent graduate who participated in the demonstration, said she appreciates Martin’s gesture but said she doesn’t think it needs to take three and a half months.
“It’s a simple request that could be granted without a lot of process,” Wyatt said. “We just want to make sure it doesn’t get bogged down in committee.”
JLARC recommendations
The board also took some time to discuss a series of reports on higher education spending from the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission.
The commission detailed substantial increases in non-instructional spending at public colleges and universities — including spending on athletics and student activities funded by fees.
The reports call on institutions to cut these fees, slow down spending on new construction and find ways to save students and taxpayers money.
Members of the UVa board and the administration pointed out that the university has relied less on student fee increases than other institutions. For example, fees for auxiliary services such as athletics, dining and housing at colleges across the state rose an average of 91 percent between fiscal years 2003 and 2012; at UVa, they rose 51 percent.
About 5 percent of tuition and fees is used for UVa’s athletics programs, compared with the average of 12 percent statewide.
“I think the diversity of institutions needs to be considered when the General Assembly looks at these things,” said Colette Sheehy, the university’s vice president for management and budget.
Much of the difference comes from UVa’s endowment and its status as a Division I school, administrators said.
Still, the university is trying to cut costs, said Pat Hogan, UVa’s chief operating officer. Part of the university’s long-term strategic plan is finding efficiencies. Hogan said the administration is already doing that.
For example, Hogan said he has sought out exclusive deals with vendors on laboratory supplies, which he believes will yield savings of about 8 percent in that area. Human-resources functions of several schools also could be merged or streamlined, he said.
Board members brainstormed ideas for dealing with the General Assembly. Frank E. Genovese suggested using the commission’s data to create metrics that show the university’s value, such as the ratio between dollars spent and students graduated.
It could work in UVa’s favor during talks with legislators, he said.
“We might need to use it later,” Genovese said. “I bet we could come out pretty good if we used a fair model.”
The administration has bristled at the commission’s suggestion that more state funding should be redirected from schools that are relatively well-off (like UVa) to needier institutions, pointing out that UVa already receives less funding as a percentage of its overall budget.
About 5 percent of UVa’s funding comes from state appropriations, according to the university’s own estimates, compared with 13 percent at The College of William & Mary.
Board member Kevin J. Fay said the university would need to articulate this to legislators without coming across as elitist.
“There’s a fine line between confidence and arrogance,” Fay said. “We need to be careful not to cross it, but we need to not be apologetic.”
Helen E. Dragas said the university might be hurting itself by arguing it is special and should somehow be exempted from state cost-cutting measures. The public already is losing patience with state colleges and universities over tuition and fee increases.
Instead, she said, UVa should take the lead in finding ways to cut costs.
“My feeling is something’s not working,” Dragas said. “And I think we should do more to understand what that is and what our stakeholders think that is. It seems like there are two virtual realities — our reality and everyone else’s reality.”
John G. Macfarlane III, one of the board’s newer members, said the university may have to shoulder more of the funding burden in a tough economy.
“We have to understand that there are others that probably need it more than we do,” he said. “We have to be good citizens.”
The board will meet for a final time this year at 9 a.m. Saturday in the Special Collections Library to talk about the implementation of the strategic plan and ideas for a new tuition and financial aid model.
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About 20 activists gathered outside this morning’s Board of Visitors meeting at the University of Virginia demanding the right to speak to the board in public session.
The activists — all students or recent graduates — said they want the opportunity to address the board on a variety of issues, including tuition increases, the pay for university employees and cuts to the financial aid program, AccessUVa.
“All of us had different issues that brought us here,” said Nqobile Mthethwa, a second-year student, just before the meeting.
“We found we had no avenues for addressing those issues with the board.”
Standing outside the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library, the protestors took turns issuing a variety of demands, including greater outreach to minorities and people from lower-income families by the admissions department; in-state tuition for undocumented students covered by Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals and establishment of a living wage for university employees.
“This event is our own public comment period, since the Board of Visitors doesn’t have one,” said Ibby Han, a second-year student.
After the demonstration, they came inside the library to watch a meeting of the full board and held signs calling for a public comment period.
Shortly before the silent protest inside the library, Board Rector George Martin said members had been in touch with the group. Martin said he has asked the board’s Special Committee on Governance and Engagement to take it under consideration.
The committee will hand down a recommendation in February, Martin said.
UVa board meets in closed session to evaluate senior staff, discuss potential litigation
A committee of the University of Virginia Board of Visitors met for a closed session in Richmond on Monday afternoon to discuss “the evaluation of senior staff” and potential litigation.
“It’s too early to know how much [debt] they’ll graduate with,” Hogan said. “But we want to revisit all our financial aid packages to see whether we’ve got the right balance.”
President Teresa A. Sullivan said the university is still generous with financial aid, and is one of the few “need-blind” admissions schools, which does not take student need into account when deciding whether to accept or reject an applicant.
“Very few schools are need-blind,” she said. “Most of them are peeking to see whether you bring a grant or whether your daddy can pay for a library.”
The board will dedicate a four-hour meeting Saturday to discussion of a new financial plan.
New clinical space
The university plans to convert a 59,000-square-foot office building on Ray C. Hunt Drive in the Fontaine Research Park into urology and cardiology clinics in summer 2016, Eric Swensen, UVa Medical Center spokesman, said.
The university’s Health System will purchase the property from the University of Virginia Physicians Group for $14 million and spend anywhere from $17 to $21 million renovating it.
Hogan said the current urology space in West Complex is difficult for many patients to access. The new space would allow the Health System to combine several cardiology clinics at Northridge Medical Office and the Medical Center into one location, he said.
Various committees of the board approved the plan Thursday, making approval in Friday’s full board meeting all but a formality.
Also on Friday, a special session is scheduled on a report from the General Assembly’s Joint Legislative and Audit Review Commission calling for Virginia public colleges to limit athletic fees and spending on construction. The meeting is set for 1:30 p.m.
http://www.dailyprogress.com/news/local/uva-student-group-protests-outside-board-of-visitors-meeting/article_5aa99988-6c1e-11e4-bde5-337cb4c1cd62.html
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