U.Va. names next president, defying Spanberger

The University of Virginia’s board named Darden School of Business Dean Scott Beardsley as the university’s 10th president on Friday, disregarding calls from Gov.-elect Abigail Spanberger and faculty groups to pause the process.

Beardsley will take office Jan. 1, 2026, according to the board’s announcement. “Scott brings exceptional qualifications to this role,” the board’s email to the U.Va. community said. “The board was unanimous in its vote. We are confident that Scott’s leadership, vision and commitment to the U.Va. community uniquely position him to serve as president at this moment.”

The Washington Post reported Thursday that Beardsley, who was appointed to his third term as the business school’s dean in December 2024, was the apparent front-runner in the university’s search for its new president.

Gov. Glenn Youngkin congratulated Beardsley on his appointment in a post on X. “I know Dean Beardsley only by his reputation, which is stellar, and based on his accomplishments at the Darden School of Business, which is consistently ranked as the top public business school in the country.” Youngkin thanked the board and its special search committee, “who conducted a robust, world-class search process.”

While Spanberger’s transition team did not immediately issue a statement after U.Va.’s announcement, other Virginia Democratic officials indicated that there may be more controversy ahead for the university and Beardsley.

Sen. Louise Lucas, president pro tempore of the Virginia State Senate, tweeted after Friday’s announcement, “Scott Beardsley, you will quickly learn about the separation of powers between branches and what happens when one branch gives a middle finger to another that funds, regulates and allows their existence. Buckle up.”

Democratic state Sen. Aaron Rouse, who chairs the Senate Privileges & Elections Committee that considers gubernatorial board appointments, reposted U.Va.’s announcement about Beardsley’s hiring, while adding, “We’ll see about that. The U.Va. Board of Visitors is not fully constituted. … We have clear oversight over U.Va.’s Board of Visitors, and we intend to exercise it this upcoming session.”

Lt. Gov.-elect Ghazala Hashmi wrote in a statement Friday that “Youngkin’s decision to advance the appointment of a new president at the University of Virginia in the waning days of his administration, just as Gov.-elect Abigail Spanberger prepares to assume office, raises serious concerns about process, institutional norms and respect for a democratic transition.”

Beardsley, dean of U.Va.’s Darden business school since 2015, was named 2020 Dean of the Year by Poets & Quants, an online publication covering business schools. He has raised more than $610 million for Darden over the past decade and was instrumental in opening Darden’s satellite campus in Arlington County.

He holds a degree in electrical engineering from Tufts University, an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management and a doctorate in higher education management from the University of Pennsylvania. Before coming to U.Va., he worked for McKinsey & Co.

“I am deeply grateful to these leaders for giving me the opportunity to serve UVA and the commonwealth of Virginia and to learn from them over the past 10 years,” Beardsley said in a statement. “I especially want to thank President Emerita Terry Sullivan, who took a chance on me; President Emeritus Jim Ryan, for his leadership during a pivotal period and for reappointing me to his team twice; and interim President Paul Mahoney, who graciously stepped forward as interim president, for all they have done to move the university forward.”

Beardsley succeeds Ryan, who resigned in late June under political pressure from the Trump administration. Because of the controversy surrounding Ryan’s departure, which took place during a U.S. Department of Justice investigation into alleged civil rights law violations, Spanberger wrote a letter to the U.Va. Board of Visitors requesting that it hold off on hiring a new president until she takes office on Jan. 17, 2026, and is able to fill five empty seats on the board.

The U.Va. Faculty Senate followed suit in calling for a pause in the hiring process, and last week, it approved a resolution calling for finalists in the search to “demonstrate a commitment to the U.Va. community by joining us in calling for a pause in the process to allow for additional deliberation and due diligence on the part of the university.”

The Faculty Senate also warned finalists that “any individual selected for the presidency under the current search timeline and by a board that does not have its full complement of 17 members including 12 alumni and 12 Virginia residents should be aware they will not assume their position with the confidence of the Faculty Senate if hired as U.Va.’s 10th president.”

Senate President Jeri Seidman said in an interview following the board’s announcement that she was “very disappointed” in the decision to make a hiring decision before the end of the year, saying that the BOV’s members showed their “commitment to political alliances,” rather than “commitment to the university.” She did not have a comment on the hiring of Beardsley, noting that the Faculty Senate did not weigh in on individual candidates.

A group of nine U.Va. deans sent a letter Dec. 1 to the BOV asking for a postponement in hiring the next president, according to a report by The Cavalier Daily, but Beardsley was not among the signers.

Faculty and staff organizations also have demanded the resignations of U.Va. Rector Rachel Sheridan and Vice Rector Porter Wilkinson, who were both involved in negotiations with the DOJ, and whom Ryan alleged had hired an attorney to represent the board who then exerted pressure on him to resign, saying that it was a requirement for U.Va. to reach a settlement on civil rights charges.

In a letter to the Faculty Senate made public, Ryan alleged that Gov. Glenn Youngkin, members of the Board of Visitors and attorneys hired by the board may have been behind the push to resign — rather than the DOJ, which has denied a “quid pro quo” scenario. However, U.Va. board member and benefactor Paul Manning disputed Ryan’s take on the matter, defending the university’s negotiations with the Justice Department.

In October, interim U.Va. President Paul Mahoney, a former U.Va. Law dean, reached a deal with the DOJ that didn’t call for financial penalties but does require the university to file quarterly reports through the end of 2028 with the assistant attorney general who leads the DOJ’s civil rights division. Critics have decried the deal as harmful to academic freedom and representing capitulation to the Trump administration.

A week after her gubernatorial election victory, Spanberger requested in a letter to Sheridan and Wilkinson that they pause the university’s search for a new permanent president. She also criticized the Youngkin-appointed board’s actions over the past six months.

“The actions of the Board of Visitors have severely undermined the public’s and the university community’s confidence in the board’s ability to govern productively, transparently and in the best interests of the university,” Spanberger wrote in the Nov. 12 letter, which arrived a day before Ryan’s letter. For his part, Youngkin sent Spanberger a reply, blasting what he called “hyperbole and factual errors” in her missive.

“As stated at the outset of this search, we have been committed to an inclusive, transparent and thoughtful process to ensure the next president of the University of Virginia is equipped to play a critical role in the future of our great institution,” Sheridan, who also chaired the search committee, said in a statement Friday. “After careful deliberation and close consultation with the U.Va. community and stakeholders throughout the process, including faculty, staff, students, alumni and parents, we are honored to announce Dean Beardsley as the university’s next leader.”

Over the second half of the year, Youngkin was embroiled in a legal dispute with nine state Senate Democrats over a Senate committee’s rejection of the governor’s 22 university board appointees, including five U.Va. Board of Visitors seats. In early December, the legal battle ended, with both sides acknowledging that the case was moot because of Spanberger’s election and the upcoming General Assembly session.

Spanberger expects to name 22 board members for U.Va., George Mason University and Virginia Military Institute immediately upon taking office next month, she has said.

Despite Spanberger’s call for the board to pause its presidential search, the special committee in charge of interviewing candidates has continued its work, meeting in person and virtually with interviewees in recent weeks, although often outside the public eye. At 1 p.m. Friday, the full board went into closed session after a brief open session, which was open to the public but not streamed online, as board of visitors meetings typically are.

Outside an office building in Charlottesville where the board met, protesters from U.Va.’s United Campus Workers and American Association of University Professors chapters chanted and held signs decrying the board and the future president.

“It doesn’t matter who is named, if it’s before the end of January, it will violate many admonitions to wait until the BOV is recalibrated by the governor-elect,” Walter F. Heinecke, a U.Va. professor who serves on the AAUP chapter’s executive committee, wrote in a text message before Friday’s meeting. “This board should not be appointing anyone right now. It’s an out-of-compliance board. It is the same board that facilitated Ryan’s ouster by the DOJ.”

The board’s announcement said that Beardsley was among 27 candidates reviewed by the search committee, out of more than 100 nominations.