
UVA Computer Science professor resigns over incompetence of board - riordan
https://gist.github.com/2955870
======
tomasien
Brief description of what's happening: a bit over 2 years ago, Teressa
Sullivan was appointed the first woman president in the history of UVa, a
school that was all male until the 70's.

Suddenly, last week she was forced to resign because of a "philosophical
difference" with the Board of Visitors, a group that is appointed by the state
of oversee University Affairs and top level hirings. It was later revealed
this was the result of a coup by a bunch of Darden MBA's because they wanted
"radical" change to the future plans of the University, not incremental
change.

The students and faculty are outraged because this was done in secret behind
closed doors, which is very much contrary to the way things are typically done
at UVa (because of Jefferson's vision or whatever, I find a lot of the
Jefferson talk to be crap but let's take it for what it is for now).

There have been protests, yada yada yada everybody is pissed and people are
starting to quit.

This is a big damn deal that's only getting worse, and although I'm a UVa alum
who for some reason doesn't really care, I suggest taking a look at this if
you're interested in the bs that can go on at the ivory tower institutions

~~~
tomasien
I'll add that by all accounts she was beloved and was doing what was widely
considered a great job. NOBODY was openly complaining, it was very sudden.

~~~
electronvolt
As a current student (undergraduate; CS/Math), and the son of two faculty
members (Music/English) I'll agree with this. Every faculty member involved in
some sort of administration that I know (both parents, multiple family
friends, and people I have had courses for and work for) were in favor of
Sullivan's proposed changes: anyone who has spent time around a University can
imagine how hard it is to get that level of buy-in from the professors. (Hint:
imagine herding irritable, opinionated, and very, very smart cats that are
often impossible to fire. Then imagine that some of them have large bullhorns
and are willing to write for Slate if they disagree with you, like Siva
Vaidhyanathan here:
[http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/hey_wait_a_m...](http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/hey_wait_a_minute/2012/06/teresa_sullivan_fired_from_uva_what_happens_when_universities_are_run_by_robber_barons_.html)
Point being, it is hard to get consensus, and I might be understating that.)

The main objection that I and most people I've talked to have is that the BOV
hasn't given a good reason for its actions. It may very well be that Sullivan
deserved to be fired. It may very well be that there needed to be more drastic
changes than she was willing to make (although for an appropriate idea of how
hard drastic, top down change is at a top University, see my description of
faculty consensus above). But without releasing any concrete reason, backed up
by publicly available data, and by essentially saying "shut up and trust our
judgment", they showed a fundamental disconnect between their idea of
acceptable governance and the rest of the university's idea of acceptable
governance. For the record, I think that if you look at them as the board of a
corporation replacing a CEO, their actions are totally reasonable (and I
wouldn't be surprised if this was, in part, how they viewed themselves; this
doesn't really say much for their case, though, because that still shows a
massive cultural disconnect between them and the university body).

------
rayiner
Additional backstory: the revolt of the faculty is due to the Board wanting to
close marginal academic departments at the University.

Further backstory: the expenditures of the academic division at UVA have
increased about 80% since 2001. Enrollment has only increased 9%. In-state
tuition has increased about 275%.

I'm not a UVA alum, but I grew up in Virginia, so I care about what happens at
UVA. UVA's faculty can wax philosophical all they want about academic freedom
and the like, but at the end of the day the explosion in university expenses
cannot be ignored. Expenditures on faculty salaries have risen 4-5% per year
over the last decade even though enrollment has only grown 0.7% per year and
salaries in other sectors have been stagnant.

It's insane that there are 3,300 faculty for a school that has only 21,000 FTE
students. I'm a strong supporter of public education and public research, but
facilitating this faculty growth at the expense of students is absolutely
ridiculous and it's high-time the Board made some cuts.

~~~
jleader
"the expenditures of the academic division at UVA have increased about 80%
since 2001...In-state tuition has increased about 275%."

This says to me that some other source of funding (state subsidy?) has just
about disappeared, is that right?

~~~
rayiner
The idea that tuition increases are just to make up for deep cuts in state
funding is mostly a myth. State funding was cut during the Great Recession,
yes, but even if state subsidies had kept pace with enrollment growth and
inflation, tuition would still have had to double.

The problem is that expenditure growth is outstripping all non-tuition sources
of revenue. E.g. research grants, which account for 1/4 of the budget, have
increased only 60%. Endowment income, of course, has not kept pace either
given the state of the markets. The University has grown expenditures far
faster than its growth in revenues, and has made up for the difference by
tripling tuitions.

------
dredmorbius
Additional backstory for those not gleaning sufficient context from either the
HN title or Bill Wulf's resignation letter (echoing another comment: more a
resume than a list of wrongs).

From the Slate article below: On Thursday night, a hedge fund billionaire,
self-styled intellectual, “radical moderate,” philanthropist, former Goldman
Sachs partner, and general bon vivant named Peter Kiernan resigned abruptly
from the foundation board of the Darden School of Business at the University
of Virginia. He had embarrassed himself by writing an email claiming to have
engineered the dismissal of the university president, Teresa Sullivan, ousted
by a surprise vote a few days earlier.

[http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/hey_wait_a_m...](http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/hey_wait_a_minute/2012/06/teresa_sullivan_fired_from_uva_what_happens_when_universities_are_run_by_robber_barons_.html)

~~~
chernevik
"Sullivan is an esteemed sociologist who specialized in class dynamics and the
role of debt"

Actually kind of a revealing sentence.

~~~
dredmorbius
Indeed. I may have to look her up.

The most interesting things I've seen written about debt in the past 20 years
comes from an anthropologist, David Graeber. _Debt, the first 5000 years_.
Insights I've never seen from an economist.

I'm curious as to what a sociologist has come up with.

~~~
chernevik
What I've seen of Graeber's stuff is interesting. Economics is too important
to be left to the economists.

But I've always regarded sociology as undisciplined and people studying it
unrigorous. I haven't missed much by those rules of thumb.

A number of Sullivan's books were written with one Elizabeth Warren. When
other academics tried to examine their data they came up short. Look her up if
you like, but you're more likely to learn more elsewhere.

~~~
dredmorbius
I share some of your sentiments for the softer social sciences. I've also
grown increasingly skeptical of significant portions of economics as well.
Another author I've recently learned of, still need to start chewing into his
work, is Jonathan Nitzan, whose _Capital as Power_ is predicated on the notion
that splitting Economics and Political Science apart was a mistake. I'd been
leaning that way myself.

Lawrence Lessig's _Free Culture_ notes that much recent copyright wrangling is
really a return to feudalism. I've been suspecting that it's rather more than
just copyright.

------
rfrey
Apologies in advance for the off-topic comment. But in looking for more
information on this story, I read [http://hamptonroads.com/2012/06/amid-
uproar-uva-moves-replac...](http://hamptonroads.com/2012/06/amid-uproar-uva-
moves-replace-president) the Virginian Pilot. Which is not the item.

The item is: I have never in my life read such civilized and respectful
comments from blog or newspaper readers who clearly disagree with each other
on an important issue. My goodness! Is this a regular feature of Southern U.S.
life?

~~~
jmduke
Virginia -- particularly Charlottesville and Richmond -- is not some Southern
stereotype.

That being said, I think the people most interested in this news are those
with vested interests in Virginia higher education -- alums, donors, etc. --
and that tends to raise the average level of discourse.

~~~
chrisrhoden
Most of the south isn't a southern stereotype. The DC metro is more like a new
england city than either of the two you mentioned. This paper is based out of
southeastern VA, in the VA Beach and Norfolk area.

~~~
scott_s
I grew up in the DC area (Virginia side), and myself and others there never
considred it "the South." I always thought of it as the dividing line between
North and South. This always seemed natural to me, since Virginia seceded in
the Civil War, and Maryland did not.

~~~
chrisrhoden
Dirty little secret time - me too. I have moved around a bunch since then, and
thats the case at every major metro "in the south." Norfolk considers itself
the dividing line with the "real" south (which _obviously_ starts in North
Carolina), and guess how people feel about Raleigh? Even by the time that you
get to Charlotte or as far as Atlanta, there is a feeling among most people
that one is outside of "the south."

Know what? They are.

I would encourage you to compare any east coast city against any other. Then I
would encourage you to compare an underpopulated area in Maine against an
underpopulated area in Tennessee.

~~~
scott_s
I live in NY now, in Westchester. I know what you mean about the difference
between small towns and major cities. But the small towns up here are still
different from the small towns I know from Virginia. I lived in Williamsburg
for three years, and Blacksburg for a total of eight and a half years. Both
times, I did think of myself as living in the South.

The difference between the DC area and all of the other cities in the South is
that the DC area _was_ actually the dividing line between the Union and the
Confederacy.

~~~
chrisrhoden
NY is different from VA, that's true. But I think part of that is that you're
never that far from a seriously major metro (even upstate). Have you been to
Maine?

~~~
scott_s
No, I haven't. But did you ever encounter people in Maine who felt kinship
with the Confederacy?

~~~
chrisrhoden
Do you mean people who are overly zealous about the history of their state,
people who are bigoted, or both? Because yes. Everywhere. Not just Maine.

~~~
scott_s
Given the distant and not-so-distant history of the South, my personal
experience is that attitudes are different there than elsewhere. But, of
course, that's anecdote, not data.

------
wcarey
Beyond the politics (which the Board of Visitors appears to have handled
distressingly badly), there's an interesting analogy to software design
lurking in the story.

It seems like the philosophical conflict that drove Sullivan't dismissal maps
cleanly to the two styles of programming that pg described in "Programming
Bottom-Up":

"It's worth emphasizing that bottom-up design doesn't mean just writing the
same program in a different order. When you work bottom-up, you usually end up
with a different program. Instead of a single, monolithic program, you will
get a larger language with more abstract operators, and a smaller program
written in it. Instead of a lintel, you'll get an arch."

My reading of Dragas's and Sullivan's statements to the Board of Visitors is
that Dragas wants the University designed as a lintel, and Sullivan as an
arch.

Dragas argues that "the Board is the one entity that has a unique vantage
point that enables us to oversee the big picture of those interactions, and
how the leadership shapes the strategic trajectory of the University." [1] The
changes Dragas seems to support (though it's hard to find a clear statement of
them anywhere?) would be akin to a major rewrite from scratch. University
design by lintel.

Sullivan conversely argues that, "[c]orporate-style, top-down leadership does
not work in a great university." She seems to be arguing for incremental
changes more akin to aggressive refactoring.

[1] <http://cvillenews.com/2012/06/18/dragas-sullivan-statements/>

------
kickingvegas
"More computing sins are committed in the name of efficiency (without
necessarily achieving it) than for any other single reason — including blind
stupidity." — W.A. Wulf

As an alumnus of the University of Virginia in Computer Engineering, kudos
Professor Wulf.

~~~
dredmorbius
Thank you.

You've just given me my #1 salvo against systemd :)

------
jlarocco
Anybody else completely lost on this?

There's really no explanation in the link.

I read the whole thing and have no idea why he's resigning, or even who he is
or why I should care.

"Being President was a full time job in DC..." made me chuckle, though.

------
Nate75Sanders
To be clear, this isn't some random professor:

 _My wife (Anita Jones) and I are in Computer Science and we both hold the
title University Professor — the highest rank at UVa. Of the 3300 faculty at
UVa, roughly 13 hold that title._

~~~
rayiner
He may be impressive, but he also sounds like an entitled baby boomer who
thinks he should get more and more tuition dollars from young people in the
name of "academic freedom." His resignation letter is devoid of even a sop to
the budget crisis that has forced the Board to cut departments in lieu of
raising tuition beyond the 275% the University has raised it in the last
decade.

~~~
brown9-2
_He may be impressive, but he also sounds like an entitled baby boomer who
thinks he should get more and more tuition dollars from young people in the
name of "academic freedom."_

Source?

Sounds like his entire complaint is about the BOV. I don't see anything in the
letter that would give you a different impression about the professor's
complaint.

~~~
rayiner
It's implicit in the context of the larger debate. The furor is in response to
the board trying to cut departments, because UVA has increased expenditures by
80% in the last decade while tripling tuition.

It's easy to say that's not what it's about, but practically that what it's
about. The university has been increasing faculty expenditures at 4-5% for
years in the face of 0.7% increases in enrollment. The state has no more
money. Faculty salary expenditures are the biggest line-item in the budget. If
academic freedom is to be preserved by opposing the board's cuts, the
practical consequence is continued rises in tuition.

~~~
jleader
But 4-5% increase in faculty expenditures since 2001 only produces a 60%
increase. If the biggest line-item increased by 60%, why did the budget
overall increase by 80%? Something else must be growing a lot faster than
faculty expenditures!

And why does an 80% increase in expenditures necessarily lead to a tripling of
tuition? Shouldn't tuition go up 80% as well? Unless some other source of
funding has disappeared?

~~~
chrisrhoden
Nope, the math here is a little different from that.

100 + 5% = 105 + 5% = 112.5 + 5% = 115.7625 + 5% ... = 179.5856326 - which is
approximately an 80% increase over 12 years.

As for the tripling of tuition, let's assume that tuition accounted for 30% of
the budget at the start of things above. Even if no other funding sources are
decreased (which is not the case with public universities, but let's ignore
that for now), increasing the cost of tuition by 79.58%, which is the same
amount that the overall budget increased, gets us:

30 + 79.58% = 53.874

So if we still have 70% of the original budget covered, and we add it to our
newly increased tuition cost, we get:

53.874 + 70 = 123.874

You can see that there's a bit of a deficit here.

All of that having been said, what is going on at UVa is pretty clearly messed
up. Regardless of the changes that need to happen in the budget, which I think
everyone can agree on, the BOG way overstepped here.

------
tmo9d
The article in the Washington Post mentioned that the Board was unhappy that
the ousted President wouldn't cut "obscure" programs like German _and
classics_.

Guess who majored in that obscure field of study? Tim O'Reilly, and he talks
about how studying Classics helped him decode trends in technology.

I'm an alum of the Engineering school, but I wouldn't have attended UVA were
it not for the strength of some of these obscure programs. Monied interests
are ruining this institution in the name of profit.

------
thwest
Reads more like a resume than reasons for leaving.

~~~
kmfrk
Well, it's both, I guess. He uses the extreme body of work to explain that
he's got the experience and then some to tell them that this is a managerial
and academic failure of nearly unprecedented proportions.

He's not some tenured professor sequestered in the bubble of academia.

------
pragmatic
UVA = U.VA. = U. of VA. = the University of Virgina.

~~~
tomasien
Um, thanks? They say UVa actually, but yeah I can see how not everyone would
see UVA and know what it was.

~~~
hugopeixoto
I've always associated "uva" with the university of valladolid, spain
(www.uva.es). It wasn't until I read this that the letter being in english
finally made sense.

~~~
Inufu
And I though of this: <http://uva.onlinejudge.org/>

~~~
wildtype
I think UVA as Universidad valladolid because i use their online judge.

------
chrismealy
The lack of "strategic dynamism" part is hilarious:

[http://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/confessions-community-
co...](http://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/confessions-community-college-
dean/strategic-whatnow)

~~~
tryitnow
This article is the most unbiased I've read. As a UVA alum I tend to side with
the BOV in this case. Virginia is a notoriously stingy state and it's
inevitable that big changes have to be made to keep UVA competitive.

The current leader of any organization is rarely the best choice for making
big changes. Unfortunately, it seems Sullivan was just in the wrong place at
the wrong time. My guess is the BOV wanted to bring in a hatchet man to make
some big cuts of entire departments as opposed to taking a shared sacrifice
approach.

I can tell you from my experience in the corporate world "shared sacrifice"
rarely works for big organizations facing significant budget cuts. It's
usually best to ruthlessly triage the weak parts and leave the strong parts
intact instead of trying to cut the strong and weak equally.

However, the BOV handled it poorly.

~~~
ahi
UVA is not the corporate world. If UVA wants to maintain its stature it can't
be missing entire departments (of thought). You end up with a university that
is less than the sum of its parts.

------
ChristianMarks
For background and context, please see <http://leiterreports.typepad.com/>

NEWSFLASH: the Vice-Rector has resigned. Let's hope that Rector Dragass [sic]
resigns too.

~~~
Camillo
That's too much and not enough at the same time. We really need a decent
summary.

~~~
ChristianMarks
You could start with this:
[http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2012/06/coup-detat-
at-...](http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2012/06/coup-detat-at-uva.html)

~~~
herdrick
It says nothing. How about some facts?

~~~
scott_s
Check the rest of the thread. There's a good Washington Post article which
summarizes the situation.

------
redwood
Very sad to see. We need to save public higher education in this country,
especially at the most elite institutions that actually have a chance to
compete with the privates.

------
iGarbo
Bill Wulf who? I spent 5 years at UVA, graduating with honors and an MCS in
2005, but never had a single interaction with him. Ironically I did meet
interim pres Carl Z at a breakfast for corporate recruiters last year and was
impressed by his welcoming honesty. My anecdotes only reinforce what is
obvious: Bill is a peripheral academic overdue for retirement, Carl Z was
rightfully recognized, and UVA is in safe hands.

------
mahmud
this is Bill Wulf, compiler hacker extraordinaire, designer of Bliss
programming language and optimization pioneer.

One of my personal heroes.

------
protomyth
Anyone have any sources for what the situation is?

~~~
pinko
[http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/u-va-
board-a...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/u-va-board-
appoints-interim-leader-mcdonnell-to-talk-with-
reporters/2012/06/19/gJQAHAJ3nV_story_1.html)

------
bconway
_By this email I am submitting my resignation, effective immediately. I do not
wish to be associated with an institution being as badly run as the current
UVa. A BOV that so poorly understands UVa, and academic culture more
generally, is going to make a lot more dumb decisions, so the University is
headed for disaster, and I don’t want to be any part of that. And, frankly, I
think you should be ashamed to be party to this debacle!_

Is this real? That's barely proper English, and certainly not something I
would submit to an (interim) university President.

------
gantz
I know this letter was written for a UVA audience but there is almost no
actual rhetoric about why he believes the administration to be wrong. I
understand the power of losing every title and honor on your own,..but why not
put more Ome into drafting a concise and powerful argument?

------
repoman
I don't like the letter. He spent too much time talking about his
"experience". Oh come on. It's like "dude I am a Nobel prize winner, and none
of you have that title so I am right." I hate people giving that kind of
resignation, regardless of their intentions.

------
mathattack
I don't know the professor, but seems like he's sticking the school with a
problem in the fall with his sudden resignation.

------
wildtype
It it ethical to publish someone resignal letter?

~~~
gte910h
It's an open letter.

------
wglb
William Wulf is a seriously big deal in my book.

------
joezhou
THAT IS HOW YOU DO IT LIKE A BOSS!

------
SpikeDad
I guess being a women in Virgina is an endangered species. Seems all they're
good for is government forced medical examinations.

Guess you get what you vote for in a guy like McDonald.

~~~
jmduke
The Rector of the Board of Visitors, Helen Dragas, is also a female.

Gender had nothing to do with this.

