A different opinion from a UVA alum:
The "revolt" of the faculty is partially due to the Board wanting to close marginal academic departments because they can't pay for themselves, like Classics (which studies Greek and Latin texts from the founding of Western Civ.) I was not a Classics major and in fact never took a Classics class but many of my friends who are lawyers today were and universities want students like this. Everyone understands that cuts need to be made, but the board seems to fail to understand that making cuts at a university is different than cost-saving measures at a corporation.
Beyond this one issue, the faculty is also responding like this because the Board is acting silently, secretively and hastily in making decisions for the university with little to no participation from faculty or administrators, or even information being provided. At this point, after a week of intense scrutiny and questioning, still no one outside the Board knows exactly why President Sullivan was let go.
In 2003 UVA passed a milestone in that more money came from private donors than public funds. Today UVA's budget includes only 8% being covered by the state. The cuts from the state are very real and very keenly felt. UVA is on a tricky path to become a true hybrid private/public school and the questions facing the faculty and the Board are not whether this should happen, but how.
Furthermore, to rebut some of your points
a) It's not insane to have 3300 faculty when many of those are working directly on research or employed at the medical center. (I believe this to be the case given that on average about 1000 faculty are employed through the medical center http://www.web.virginia.edu/iaas/data_catalog/institutional/...)
b) The expenditures have increased in an attempt at keeping close with peer institutions for salary and other options. Realistically, despite these attempts the faculty at UVA could easily head to competitive private or public schools and make more money, and will probably be doing so in massive numbers over the next few years following this fiasco.
c) I am not sure where you are basing your correlation that this faculty growth has happened at the expense of students. If it has been driven by the growth of costs at the Medical Center that is a source of income as well. If it's been driven by academic faculty then its either been funding research to increase the number of accolades achieved by our faculty (thereby increasing the ranking of the school) or it has been hiring more professors or paying teaching faculty more to keep them from leaving, which would seem to directly benefit students.
Beyond this one issue, the faculty is also responding like this because the Board is acting silently, secretively and hastily in making decisions for the university with little to no participation from faculty or administrators, or even information being provided. At this point, after a week of intense scrutiny and questioning, still no one outside the Board knows exactly why President Sullivan was let go.
In 2003 UVA passed a milestone in that more money came from private donors than public funds. Today UVA's budget includes only 8% being covered by the state. The cuts from the state are very real and very keenly felt. UVA is on a tricky path to become a true hybrid private/public school and the questions facing the faculty and the Board are not whether this should happen, but how.
Furthermore, to rebut some of your points a) It's not insane to have 3300 faculty when many of those are working directly on research or employed at the medical center. (I believe this to be the case given that on average about 1000 faculty are employed through the medical center http://www.web.virginia.edu/iaas/data_catalog/institutional/...) b) The expenditures have increased in an attempt at keeping close with peer institutions for salary and other options. Realistically, despite these attempts the faculty at UVA could easily head to competitive private or public schools and make more money, and will probably be doing so in massive numbers over the next few years following this fiasco. c) I am not sure where you are basing your correlation that this faculty growth has happened at the expense of students. If it has been driven by the growth of costs at the Medical Center that is a source of income as well. If it's been driven by academic faculty then its either been funding research to increase the number of accolades achieved by our faculty (thereby increasing the ranking of the school) or it has been hiring more professors or paying teaching faculty more to keep them from leaving, which would seem to directly benefit students.