by James A. Bacon
Virginia Military Institute Superintendent Cedric T. Wins was awarded a $100,000 bonus after his FY-2022 performance review, and the Spirit of VMI PAC (SOVP) wants to know what criteria the Board of Visitors used in granting him the award.
The bonus, which was four times his previous $25,000 award, lifted Wins’ total 2022 compensation to $725,000. The bonus was paid with private contributions.
“SOVP questions what performance metrics the BOV used to make such a generous award and sharp increase,” stated the organization in a press release last week. “FY-2022 was an academic year that generated major concern among alumni and friends about VMI’s direction, and included large increases in attrition from the Corps. Also notable was a sharp drop in applications, which triggered the elimination of the application deadline and the SAT requirement, and led to a 25% drop in New Cadet Matriculation. This failure occurred the first year after General Wins asked for the resignation of the most successful Director of Admissions in VMI’s history.”
While the Spirit of VMI’s differences with Wins reflect issues unique to VMI, the press release raises a matter of broader concern: what criteria do the boards of Virginia’s public universities use to award bonuses, and shouldn’t those criteria be part of the public record?
Wins has led VMI during one of the most tumultuous times in its 183-year history. He came on board to replace J.H. Binford Peay III, a popular and long-serving superintendent, after a series of negative articles in The Washington Post accused the Institute of unrelenting racism and then-Governor Ralph Northam compelled his resignation. Under Wins, VMI downplayed its Confederate heritage, removing the statue of Stonewall Jackson from the Post and canceling the reenactment of the Battle of New Market in which VMI cadets played a significant role. Also, Wins has hired Diversity, Equity & Inclusion staff and launched DEI training and events. Traditionalist alumni have criticized the DEI initiatives as racially divisive and antithetical to the egalitarian ethos of VMI’s Rat Line and regimental system.
After two years of controversy, VMI re-opened this academic year with only 375 cadets in its 1st-year class, down 24% from 494 the previous year. VMI officials say the drop largely reflects the decline in the number of students attending colleges and universities nationally. Dissident alumni blame the wave of negative publicity portraying the Institute as racist and sexist.
In its press release the Spirit of VMI raised a second transparency issue regarding the source of funds to pay the bonus. “Identifying a source of funds as ‘private’ is unacceptable disclosure. How many donors contributed to the $395,000 from private sources that the Superintendent was paid last year? What were the sizes of the largest donations? Did an Institute agency solicit and appropriate these funds, and if so, which?”
The press release closes by asking if the General Assembly is comfortable with this compensation format, “which potentially risks the dictation of the school’s direction by an oligarchy of large donors? SOVP will soon ask legislators to respond.”
Bacon’s bottom line: One can agree or disagree with the Spirit of VMI’s criticisms of VMI policy under Wins, but the group is fully justified in asking for more transparency. As a member of The Jefferson Council, a University of Virginia alumni group, I have confronted similar issues regarding the criteria for awarding bonuses to UVa President Jim Ryan.
Ryan’s employment contract with UVa is a public document, and any citizen can obtain it through the Freedom of Information Act, as I presume is the case with VMI. However, a critical adjunct to that contract is not available: the performance metrics and other criteria the Board uses to determine the size of Ryan’s bonus. When I asked for that document, UVa turned me down flat.
The performance-criteria document is arguably more important than the employment contract for the public to see because it tells us something the employment contract does not: (a) the goals and objectives that are most important to the Board, and (b) the goals and objectives the university president is financially incentivized to prioritize. Traditionally, the primary goal of university presidents was said to be fund raising. In more recent years, a president might be rewarded for raising his institution’s U.S. News & World-Report “Best Colleges and Universities” ranking, or at the very least to manage the metrics that U.S. News employs in devising its ranking. Alternatively, a board might instruct its president to reshape the demographic profile of its college admissions.
While VMI under Wins suffered a debilitating decline in overall admissions, the decline was concentrated overwhelmingly among Whites. The number of Blacks and Asians saw significant percentage increases. It is entirely legitimate to ask if those outcomes reflected policy choices by Wins, and if his success in recruiting minorities was rewarded by the Board.
If the public doesn’t know the tangible metrics used to guide university policy, it’s impossible to gauge how well boards and presidents are doing their jobs.
