by James A. Bacon

With Senate Democrats warning the University of Virginia to wait until next year to appoint a new president, the Board of Visitors has embarked upon its first crucial step — selecting a 28-person search committee.

According to a university statement released yesterday, the special committee tasked with recommending candidates to the Board of Visitors to serve as UVA’s 10th president includes “a diverse group of UVA students, faculty, staff, alumni and former and sitting members of the Board of Visitors.”

The group will be charged with incorporating “a broad and inclusive range of perspectives from across UVA’s vibrant community as the presidential search moves forward.”

Board members appointed by Governor Glenn Youngkin will be firmly in control of the search. Not only will nine board members serve on the committee, but Rector Rachel Sheridan will chair the group, and Vice Rector Porter Wilkinson will serve as vice chair.

Members of the Faculty Senate likely will be disappointed. The Senate had called for 75% faculty representation in the search, an impossibly high number, but will have to settle for six of the 28 slots. Likewise, Student Council requested that five students serve on the search committee but only one undergraduate student, who happens to be the student representative on the Board, and one graduate student (plus another who graduated in May) will join the group.

The search committee also includes three former board members: former Rector George Martin (appointed by Governor Bob McDonnell) and Babur Lateef and Jimmy Reyes (appointed by Governor Ralph Northam), who recently rotated off the board.

If there were any sops thrown to senate Democrats, who have fulminated against the Department of Justice probe into racial preferences at UVA and the resignation of President Jim Ryan, the addition of two former board members appointed by a Democratic governor is not likely to cut it. There are no legislators nor any of their outspoken militant allies from the UVA faculty on the list.

But there’s not much to please the conservative critics of UVA either. Overall, I would describe the group as “institutionalist” in orientation.

States Senate Democrats have threatened to cancel Youngkin’s latest five nominations for the Board and have suggested that Democrat appointees will control the Board within a year and have the power to fire any president hired by the current board. The Board of Visitors has yet to comment publicly on the threats. The establishment orientation of the search committee suggests that Rector Sheridan is sloughing off the political assault on the Board’s prerogatives.

To get a sense of how the slots are distributed, I broke them down by category along with the descriptors provided in the UVA statement.

Board of Visitors members

Rachel Sheridan, committee chair: rector of the University; president, Virginia Athletics Foundation; partner, Capital Markets Group, Kirkland & Ellis. Sheridan earned an undergraduate degree from UVA in 1994 and a law degree in 1998. She is the parent of a UVA student.

Porter Wilkinson, committee vice chair: vice rector of the University; counselor and chief of staff, Smithsonian Institution Board of Regents. Wilkinson earned a law degree from UVA in 2007.

Jim Donovan: member, UVA Board of Visitors; vice chairman, Global Client Coverage at Goldman Sachs; adjunct professor, UVA School of Law; board member, Karsh Institute of Democracy. Donovan is the parent of a UVA student.

Marvin Gilliam: member, UVA Board of Visitors; owner and manager, MAM Development; trustee, Virginia Athletics Foundation. Gilliam graduated from UVA in 1978.

John Harris: member, UVA Board of Visitors; private investor and previous managing director, chief financial officer and senior adviser for The Carlyle Group. Harris graduated from UVA in 1982.

Paul Manning: member, UVA Board of Visitors; chair, UVA Health System Board; chair and CEO of PBM Capital.

John Nau: member, UVA Board of Visitors; former chair and CEO of Silver Eagle Distributors. Nau graduated from UVA in 1968.

Dr. David Okonkwo: member, UVA Board of Visitors; professor of neurological surgery at the University of Pittsburgh. Okonkwo is a 1994 UVA graduate and the parent of a UVA student.

Doug Wetmore: member, UVA Board of Visitors; senior vice president for business development, Centauri Health Solutions. Wetmore earned a bachelor’s degree from UVA in 1988 and a law degree in 1991.

Amanda Pillion: member, UVA Board of Visitors; former mayor of Abingdon. Pillion earned an undergraduate degree from UVA in 1997 and a master’s in 1999. She is the parent of a UVA student.

Faculty

Philip Bourne: founding dean, School of Data Science; professor of biomedical engineering.

Jim Lambert: Janet Scott Hamilton and John Downman Hamilton Professor at the UVA School of Engineering and Applied Science; UVA Board of Visitors faculty representative.

David Leblang: Ambassador Henry J. Taylor and Mrs. Marion R. Taylor Endowed Professor of Politics at the College of Arts & Sciences; professor of public policy, Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy; director of policy studies, UVA’s Miller Center of Public Affairs.

Sherri Moore: associate professor, McIntire School of Commerce. Moore graduated from UVA in 1985.

Administration / Staff

Kenyon Bonner: UVA vice president and chief student affairs officer. Bonner is the parent of a UVA student.

Lori McMahon: UVA vice president for research; professor of neuroscience.

Dr. Mitch Rosner: chair, UVA Department of Medicine; Henry B. Mulholland Professor of Medicine; interim executive vice president for health affairs at UVA Health.

Adam Richard: co-chair, UVA Staff Senate Executive Committee

Carla Williams: UVA director of athletics. Williams is the parent of a UVA student.

Other alumni

Marvin Bush: vice president and director, Winston Capital Management and Winston Partners Group; vice president, Virginia Athletics Foundation. Bush graduated from UVA in 1979.

Pam Edmonds: trustee emerita, the College Foundation; trustee, UVA Health Foundation. Edmonds graduated from UVA in 1991 and is the parent of a UVA student.

Peter Grant: founding partner of Anchormarck Holdings; chair of UVA’s recently concluded Honor the Future capital campaign. Grant earned an undergraduate degree from UVA in 1978 and an MBA in 1986.

Dr. Babur Lateef: former member, UVA Board of Visitors; former chair, UVA Health System Board; chair, Prince William County School Board; founder and owner, Advanced Ophthalmology. Lateef is a UVA graduate student.

George Martin: former rector of the University; former managing partner, McGuireWoods. Martin graduated from UVA in 1975.

Jimmy Reyes: former member, UVA Board of Visitors; owner, Reyes Holdings.

Gretchen Walsh: Olympian; world record holder; NCAA Collegiate Woman Athlete of the Year (swimming and diving). Walsh graduated from UVA in May.

Student

Quana Dennis: faculty member, Saint Anne’s-Belfield School. Dennis graduated from UVA in 2023 and earned a master’s in 2024 and is a UVA doctoral student.

Gregory Perryman: UVA Board of Visitors student representative.

James A. Bacon serves on the executive committee of the Jefferson Council. The views expressed here are his own.