Edward D. Miller, former CEO of research powerhouse Johns Hopkins Medicine, will resign from the University of Virginia Board of Visitors effective June 30 — a year early. In an interview with the Daily Progress, he cited his frustration with rising tuition and falling research grants.
“I just felt there were issues I’d been advocating for that I didn’t think were getting traction,” Miller said. “I’d worked at it for four years and I wasn’t having much of an impact.”
Miller, a former UVa faculty member, said he disagreed with recent tuition increases, suggesting that the university should focus on cutting costs instead of raising tuition. “It’s hard for me to understand how you can continue to increase the rate of tuition [faster than] the rate of inflation year after year,” he said in comments that applied to higher education as a whole, not just UVa. “What business can survive that except colleges?”
In particular, Miller was dissatisfied with the way the university implemented its most recent, 11% tuition hike for new students. The plan was introduced and passed on the same day, with no outlet for public comment. “I had a feeling that the board wasn’t given an adequate amount of time to digest this information. … I had no idea what the plan was going to be until the day of the meeting. I was surprised it was done so quickly, without more discussion.”
Tuition increases may be tied to falling research revenues, Miller said — exactly the issue that Bacon’s Rebellion raised last month in “UVa’s Silent Crisis.” If the university maintains the same number of faculty members doing research, but they’re bringing in less research funding, he said, the money has to come from somewhere else.
Miller, who knows something about what it takes to to build a world-class research program — Johns Hopkins ranks No. 1 in the country for R&D spending — said the UVa board needs to hear from top researchers what it takes to bring in grants. The UVa administration, he told the Daily Progress, also needs to identify which faculty members are not attracting their share of research funding.
Bacon’s bottom line: Make no mistake, Miller’s resignation is a major loss for UVa governance. Miller was not some know-nothing political appointee. As a former faculty member, he knows the university well. As CEO of the world’s most successful research university, he understands what it takes to grow R&D funding. His loss of expertise will be missed — well, maybe it won’t be missed, because it appears that no one was listening to him. But his loss should be missed. Submitting his resignation a year early and his willingness to go public with some of his concerns should be especially disturbing to those who worry where UVa is heading.
The university’s new slogan is “Affordable Excellence.” If the current direction isn’t soon reversed, that will have to be revised to “Unaffordable Mediocrity.”
— JAB
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