Helen Dragas Passes Senate Committee Confirmation Vote

In a 12-3 vote late Tuesday afternoon, members of the Virginia Senate Privileges and Elections Committee confirmed Governor McDonnell's June reappointment of Virginia Beach homebuilder Helen Dragas as rector of the University of Virginia Board of Visitors.

[yep]

Great news, she is the glue to this university! She is also sexy!

[cville]

haha what a joke

[Sue]

Get all your friends to email Delegate Bell to vote NO on the Dragas appointment. Toscano and Deeds oppose her already.

Go to:
http://hoosuniversity.org/

for contact info. No one who cares about the University would support her.

[sez you]

change dot org has a petition also

[Hello Bobby]

I wonder what Va Senate sees in her? Dollar signs? Or what the first commentor said-- the last sentence???

[Rick Sincere]

Complete audio and (amateur) video of the Senate P&E Committee's deliberations and final vote to recommend confirmation is on YouTube at http://youtu.be/7nrd5y9FY3M

[twinmom]

Many of the students and faculty fail to admit one reality- they don't get to pick the leadership. They have this false sense that a university is run democratically. Maybe that comes from spending your life in a secluded educational environment, but in the real world, major corporations don't let the employees (faculty) or the customers (students) decide who is at the helm. Higher education, like it or not, is a business. The members of the BOV are selected for the business skills they bring to the table, not because they are warm and fuzzy.

It is time to move on and accept that Dragas is the Rector. Some of the people who are trying to move these petitions forward are the same people who were protesting Sullivan when she refused to budge on their "living wage" campaign last spring. I think they just like to have something to protest all the time.

[jogger]

the univesity cannot operate with people who know nothing about how to run a university interferring ..i.e. students and faculty...Its bad enough to have the president the university now has....hopefully, dragas and the other girly men of the BOV will be able to conduct the universitys business and get things moving along...Dragas forever....

[Rex]

jogger wrote:

the univesity cannot operate with people who know nothing about how to run a university interferring ..i.e. students and faculty...Its bad enough to have the president the university now has....hopefully, dragas and the other girly men of the BOV will be able to conduct the universitys business and get things moving along...Dragas forever....

"univesity"
What does the other girly men of the BOV mean?

[Governor Bob McDonnell]

twinmom wrote:

Many of the students and faculty fail to admit one reality- they don't get to pick the leadership. They have this false sense that a university is run democratically. Maybe that comes from spending your life in a secluded educational environment, but in the real world, major corporations don't let the employees (faculty) or the customers (students) decide who is at the helm. Higher education, like it or not, is a business. The members of the BOV are selected for the business skills they bring to the table, not because they are warm and fuzzy.
It is time to move on and accept that Dragas is the Rector. Some of the people who are trying to move these petitions forward are the same people who were protesting Sullivan when she refused to budge on their "living wage" campaign last spring. I think they just like to have something to protest all the time.

Couldn't agree more, "twinmom"! Everyone knows that Thomas Jefferson really intended political cronies to administer his Academical Village through secret channels and backroom deals. Concepts like "honor", "integrity", and "student self-governance" are eighteenth century anachronisms that serve only to hinder the University's true purpose as a diploma-mill to be exploited by Richmond like any other government asset. All those whiny UVA grads who say otherwise obviously don't know the first thing about UVA!

[rocktown]

It's hard to imagine how she could have been a worse leader. To paraphrase the old saying, I guess we're stuck with her until she gets caught with a dead boy or a live sheep.

[kidrocky]

Governor Bob McDonnell wrote:

<quoted text>
Couldn't agree more, "twinmom"! Everyone knows that Thomas Jefferson really intended political cronies to administer his Academical Village through secret channels and backroom deals. Concepts like "honor", "integrity", and "student self-governance" are eighteenth century anachronisms that serve only to hinder the University's true purpose as a diploma-mill to be exploited by Richmond like any other government asset. All those whiny UVA grads who say otherwise obviously don't know the first thing about UVA!

You really don't know how right you are do you? Gotta love it.

[sez you]

jogger wrote:

the univesity cannot operate with people who know nothing about how to run a university interferring ..i.e. students and faculty...Its bad enough to have the president the university now has....hopefully, dragas and the other girly men of the BOV will be able to conduct the universitys business and get things moving along...Dragas forever....

Right, and Mrs Kluge knew how to run it? Now shes broke and unemployed. These positions have nothing to do with UVA operations, its all status symbols, nothing more nothing less.

[Billy]

What a shame, I wish real life was like in the movies, and someone would throw water on her and she would melt away. Like the witch in OZ did. Only somewhere over the rainbow....

[Gecko]

Dragas the slivering lizard. She's got the boys noses wide open! I guess it's true, money really does talk and get you every where.

[Roy g biv]

She is "moneys" way of keeping the gay and minority agenda in check. Lets face it...she is resistant to the liberal hijcacking of the university by the gays, blacks and minority agenda.

[Steve LOWE Coll 72]

"citing a desire to move the university forward and not dwell on the past. " What a contorted piece of logic. That is precisely WHY Dragas must go. Like a splinter, the University cannot heal until it is removed. Her presence will cause the Dragas debacle to live on, and on, and on......

[Rex]

sez you wrote:

<quoted text>Right, and Mrs Kluge knew how to run it? Now shes broke and unemployed. These positions have nothing to do with UVA operations, its all status symbols, nothing more nothing less.

Patricia Kluge is not broke like you think she is! She us doing very well, in fact!!

[Rex]

Rex wrote:

<quoted text>Patricia Kluge is not broke like you think she is! She us doing very well, in fact!!

She "is" doing very well, I meant!!

[twinmom]

Governor Bob McDonnell wrote:

<quoted text>
Concepts like "honor", "integrity", and "student self-governance" are eighteenth century anachronisms ...

And just what is meant by the term "student self-goverance"? According to the Alumni Association, "Student self-governance requires that students take responsibility for themselves as constituents and as representatives of the University community."
The Honor Code was started in 1842, more than a decade after Jefferson's death, in response to the killing of a professor by a student. That all sounds more like "student self-DISIPLINE" and self-DETERMINATION than self-goverance.
I do not claim to be a Jefferson scholar and have not read all his writings, however, I am doubtful that what he and his contemporaries had in mind was that students would bear the responsibility for the university remaining solvent and competitive. Fundraising, financial investments, hiring/firing of administration, allocation of resources, development of infrastructure, marketing, etc would seem to be beyond the scope of student life. The bottom line is that somebody has to run the place, and the BOV is tasked with determining the direction to take. It is not a democracy.

I believe that students should play a more active role in their education, and an ever-changing curricula should be driven by the students' quest for knowledge. Unfortunately, on admission they are usually handed a list of pre-determined courses that are presumed to be necessary to develop competence to enter a chosen line of employment and receive a diploma. Do you think they are up to that challenge?