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.
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.
My (CLAS '99 graduate) problem with this is that UVA is known as a strong liberal arts research institution, and even if areas like German & Classics are money sinks, cutting them causes comprehensive reputation damage spanning the liberal arts. I attended engineering graduate school at NC State, which is 100% known for engineering & agriculture/textiles, and not at all for liberal arts. That isn't to say there may not be niches of expertise, but when marketing to prospective undergraduates who judge with a broad stroke and lots of ignorance (most have no idea what course of study they'll actually end up pursuing), it does mean they can stagnate and whither.
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.