Bacon's Rebellion

Hodges Bill Would Require Universities to Archive Board Video

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James A. Bacon
in , ,

by James A. Bacon

Delegate Keith Hodges, R-Urbanna, has submitted a bill that would promote transparency in higher-ed governance. HB2452 would require public four-year institutions to record, archive, and make Boards of Visitors meetings available to the public for five years.

Boards already live-stream their open-session meetings, as required by state law. But no requirement exists to make video accessible after the fact. I can’t speak for what other universities do, but the University of Virginia does not archive its meetings.

An employee of the board’s secretary told me that UVA did not archive video of its meetings for reasons of economy. The law requires such recordings to be ADA accessible, meaning that they must have closed captioning… which would be prohibitively expensive to add.

That might have been true at one time, but it no longer is. AI-powered closed captioning software has made the cost insignificant. Otter.ai, to pick one vendor, costs business clients $240 per year. UVA is a $5 billion-a-year organization. The university spends more money on doughnuts for board members than it would on closed captioning.

The Jefferson Council finds the recordings so valuable that we capture the livestream and post it to our own YouTube account. As a journalist covering board meetings, I find it helpful to consult the recordings to get accurate quotes. Our social media guy captures clips to post online or insert in our articles. We know that other media have consulted our video files when researching their own articles.

Rather than publish a recording many hours in length, we break the video into clips devoted to specific committee sessions, generally lasting an hour to an hour-and-a-half. While these longer recordings don’t generate large viewership — they tend to have 50 to 150 viewers each — they are extremely valuable to the people who do consult them. Occasionally, we excerpt shorter clips that do go viral.

We like it when people have no recourse but to visit our website to check out the board-meeting videos. It boosts our image as an independent group that is serious about UVA board governance. But the cause of transparency is far more important than running up our click count. We heartily endorse Hodges’ bill, which would make all of Virginia’s public universities more accountable.

James A. Bacon is Contributing Editor to The Jefferson Council.

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5 responses to “Hodges Bill Would Require Universities to Archive Board Video”

  1. walter smith Avatar
    walter smith

    Once again being too kind. The reason UVA doesn't record them is they don't want the record at all! Seriously – a $5 billion enterprise, and the official "Board" meeting is usually 2 hours, with perfunctory approval of committee stuff, the pre-arranged Ryan/Hardie chosen dog and pony show, and NO TIME for actual, substantive discussion. In the public company world, this would rightly generate lawsuits for failure of governance.

    And…the amount of the enterprise should be $5.7 billion as UVA controls the $14 billion in foundations which have to throw off 5% a year. UVA claims they (the foundations) are independent and not subject to FOIA because of that "independence," but if you believe they are independent (cue George Strait) "I've got some oceanfront property…"

  2. Nancy Naive Avatar
    Nancy Naive

    They live stream. What, ain’t nobody ever heard of a DVR?

    Wait? We mock AI, but are willing to use it in the public record? But why should the university close caption? To many apps available that can do that already.

  3. Nancy Naive Avatar
    Nancy Naive

    In case you missed it…

    “How many athletes are there in the U.S. in NCAA schools?” Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) asked Baker during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday on federal regulations around sports gambling.
    “Five hundred and ten thousand,” said Baker, a former Republican governor of Massachusetts who has served since 2023 as president of the NCAA, which governs intercollegiate athletics at more than 1,000 colleges and universities across the country.
    “How many transgender athletes are you aware of?” Durbin asked.
    “Less than 10,” Baker said. He did not say whether that number includes transgender men.

    Bottom line…
    10! Out of 510,000! What’s that in percentage? 1/2 of 1/1000th of a percent? There’s more fish fecal matter in your drinking water.

    So the Republicans have all this angst over 10 transgender athletes! Ya know, if you want to cause them misery, you could just call them and shout obscenities at them over the phone. Wouldn’t take half an hour and it’s a bucket load cheaper than legislation.

  4. DJRippert Avatar
    DJRippert

    "An employee of the board’s secretary told me that UVA did not archive video of its meetings for reasons of economy."

    That employee should be terminated for cause – either dishonesty or stupidity.

  5. DJRippert Avatar
    DJRippert

    Let's get Abagail Spanberger on the record about this bill – support or oppose?

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