University of Virginia — The Ouster and Reinstatement of President Teresa Sullivan (2012)

In higher education governance, the forced departure of a president is not unusual. What is almost without precedent is the forced departure of a president who then came back.

That is what happened at the University of Virginia in June 2012, and the story reads less like a governance review than like a Shakespearean tragicomedy — complete with secret meetings, a vilified rector, 2,000 protestors on a lawn, and a governor issuing ultimatums.

What Happened

On June 10, 2012, Teresa Sullivan, UVA's first female president, two years into her tenure and by most accounts performing admirably, received a visit from Helen Dragas, the Board of Visitors' Rector (aka Chair). Dragas had spent months quietly lining up votes against Sullivan, citing vague concerns about the pace of change at the university. That conversation ended Sullivan's presidency. Dragas announced her resignation to the board and deans the same day. No public explanation was given. The broader campus community learned of it as one does when these things happen behind closed doors, by email.

The reaction was swift and searing. Faculty, students, alumni, and national higher education leaders reacted with shock and outrage, not necessarily over the outcome, but over the process. The board had acted in secret, without consultation, without a stated cause, and without any of the due process normally accorded a sitting president. Within days, the Faculty Senate voted "no confidence" in the board. An estimated 800 faculty attended an emergency meeting. An online petition gathered thousands of signatures. Donors threatened to withhold gifts.

"The decision to remove President Sullivan was, taking the reasons given by Rector Dragas at face value, procedurally and substantively arbitrary." — AAUP Investigating Committee Report, 2013

Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell, caught off guard by the board's action, issued what amounted to an ultimatum: resolve the crisis by June 26 or he would replace the entire board.

On June 26, the board voted unanimously to reinstate Sullivan. Dragas stood next to Sullivan on UVA's Grounds and applauded as the president she had tried to remove was welcomed back. It was sixteen days from ouster to reinstatement. A span so compressed that Sullivan had barely started lining up job interviews.

The AAUP launched a formal investigation, ultimately finding that the board had failed because of a "failure by those charged with institutional oversight to understand the institution over which they presided and to engage with the administration and the faculty in an effort to be well informed." The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools placed the board on warning, pending further review.

The Governance Anatomy

At its core, the UVA crisis was a failure of process on the part of a small number of board members who convinced themselves that speed and decisiveness trumped transparency and consultation. Dragas was influenced by conversations about the explosive growth of MOOCs (massive open online courses) and had grown frustrated with what she saw as Sullivan's incrementalist pace. She was, by most accounts, a capable and well-intentioned leader. But she confused the energy of a business decision with the requirements of institutional governance.

The AAUP report noted that the rector and the board "made no effort to engage with the president or the faculty on the underlying issues the rector claimed to be at stake." Had the board consulted the faculty, the committee wrote, "it is at least arguable that it would not have acted as it did." What was presented as bold leadership turned out to be nothing more than a governance violation in motion. The board discovered too late, and very publicly that an institution is not a corporation, and its president is not an at-will employee.

Governance Lessons

•  Boards exercise authority collectively, not through the will of a single chair or single member. Any move to remove a president must be deliberate, documented, and transparent.

•  Silence is not consent. When only a handful of board members know about a major decision, the institution is already in crisis even before the announcement.

•  The absence of explanation is its own act of institutional damage. Faculty, students, and donors cannot rally behind a decision they cannot understand.

•  Boards that act without consulting the faculty on matters that directly affect the institution's academic direction invite exactly the backlash the UVA board received.

•  Accreditors are watching. Governance crises of this magnitude can trigger accreditation concerns, a detail boards often fail to anticipate in the heat of the moment.

Sources: AAUP Investigating Committee Report (2013); Inside Higher Ed, "U.Va. Board Reinstates Sullivan as President" (June 26, 2012); Chronicle of Higher Education, "After a Tumultuous 7 Years, Teresa Sullivan Will Leave UVa" (January 2017); Virginia Business, "Formerly Ousted U.Va. President Has Questions About Ryan's Departure" (July 2025).