Year: 2012
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The Higher Ed Crisis: Credentialism
by James A. Bacon Jane Jacobs is best known for her masterpiece, “The Death and Life of Great American Cities,” but she wrote cogently on a wide variety of economic topics before she died in 2006. In her last work, “Dark Age Ahead,” she deplored the rise of “credentialism” in higher education. Her warning, written…
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OK, Chop off My Head, I’m Defending Helen Dragas
by James A. Bacon While Teresa Sullivan’s forced resignation came as a shock and surprise to many, the process that led up to it was not sudden. As Rector Helen Dragas stated yesterday during the BoV meeting: I want to make clear that the Board had a formalized communications process with the President, involving ongoing…
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Sullivan Responds, Reiterates Defense of Business As Usual
by James A. Bacon Teresa Sullivan has spoken at last, making a statement to the Board of Visitors defending her record as president of the University of Virginia and her philosophy of incremental change. “Corporate-style, top-down leadership does not work in a great university,” she said. “Sustained change with buy-in does work.” Being an incrementalist,…
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A Tale of Two Speeches
By Peter Galuszka Call it a Tale of Two Speeches. One was a clear and resounding defense of one of America’s most prized possessions: its university system. The other was Corporate-Speak – a kind of muddle of platitudes and lofty thoughts with little point that is so common among chief executive officers and company presidents…
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Told You So
The housing sector is picking up but recovery is being thwarted by a shortage of lots in desirable locations, reports the Wall Street Journal. No commentary is needed. The article says it all: Today many [the available] lots remain empty. They often are in distant suburbs of cities and still owned by banks, builders or…
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The Fiscal Fix
A former planning director proposes analyzing development projects on the basis of how much revenue they generate per acre. The results will astound you.
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What Incremental Change Looks Like
by James A. Bacon As long ago as last October, if today’s Washington Post article is to be believed, leaders of the University of Virginia’s Board of Visitors had lost faith in the willingness of President Teresa Sullivan to “consider dramatic program cuts in the face of dwindling resources and to approach the school with…
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Maybe It’s Not “The Vision Thing” At All
By Peter Galuszka The sad demise of Teresa Sullivan as president of the University of Virginia poses many questions regarding what happened to her and how and why the Board of Visitors did what it did. Given the board’s lack of transparency and non-communicative nature at this prestigious, public university, much opinion and supposition have…
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What An Existential Threat Looks Like
by James A. Bacon For a glimpse of the disruptive future of higher education, University of Virginia stakeholders who are up in arms over the resignation of President Teresa Sullivan should enroll in a class taught by David Evans, a popular computer science professor and winner of the Outstanding Faculty Award from the State Council…
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We’re No. 4! We’re No. 4!
Virginia is the 4th best positioned of all the states to “grow, create jobs and prosper” in the coming five to 10 years, according to a new report, “Enterprising States: Policies that Produce,” published by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The Old Dominion was surpassed by North Dakota, Utah and Texas. Virginia strengths were the…
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Helen Dragas Has a Lot of Explaining to Do
The Virginia press is actually doing its job for once, surfacing pertinent information about the circumstances surrounding the resignation of Teresa Sullivan from the presidency of the University of Virginia. It looks like the Board of Visitors needs to come clean with the full story. First, this from the Washington Post: After consulting with board…
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Ms. Dragas’ Greek Drama
By Peter Galuszka The antagonist in the drama against Teresa Sullivan is a rich real estate developer from Virginia Beach who holds undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of Virginia, took over her construction firm from her father and is a major donor to political, mostly Democratic, causes. Helen E. Dragas, 50, president of…
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What Would T.J. Do? He’d Make the Tough Choices.
by James A. Bacon Finally, hints of clarity out of Charlottesville. Digging into the departure of University of Virginia President Teresa Sullivan, Karin Kapsidelis with the Times-Dispatch has uncovered at least one concrete instance of the “difference in philosophy” that drove the Board of Visitors to seek Sullivan’s resignation. Money quote from David Leblang, chair…
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Pulling the Trigger on Aeschylus
By Peter Galuszka The news from Charlottesville just gets worse. Freshly-fired President Teresa Sullivan, it turns out, had been getting pressure from the Board of Visitors to eliminate parts of the university that were “underperforming,” possibly the Classics Department. Meanwhile, the university administration is asking Dominion (that’s right, the power company) to parachute in two…
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UVa: Where’s the Vision?
by James A. Bacon There has been a lot of coverage of Teresa Sullivan’s resignation as president of the University of Virginia but precious little analysis of why the Board of Visitors lost confidence in her ability to lead the states’ flagship university. Rector Helen E. Dragas made some cryptic remarks to the effect that…