Search committee underway for UVA’s tenth president

The University of Virginia Board of Visitors appointed Paul G. Mahoney to serve as the interim president at their meeting on August 4, 2025. Rector Rachel Sheridan also shared information about the process to select a successor to former President Jim Ryan who was forced out by the U.S. Department of Justice.

“We have appointed a balanced and representative search committee for the next president of UVA that includes a wide array of voices from every stakeholder group in our community,” Sheridan said. “It is important to us that we hear from all of these voices and that we choose a new leader for UVA who will exemplify the very best of our mission and values.”

While that process plays out, not everyone at the University of Virginia is satisfied with the way the interim president was selected. A coalition of groups held a press conference on August 6 to register their concerns.

Ian Mullins, an associate professor of sociology, read from a statement from the Faculty Committee of the United Campus Workers at UVA.

“This appointment was not an example of shared governance but the result of a closed and exclusionary process masquerading as inclusion,” Mullins read. “It was designed to pre-screen participation, silence dissent, and provide the appearance — not the reality — of democratic input.”

The UCW at UVA is calling on other members of the UVA community to denounce Mahoney’s appointment and to withhold cooperation from administrative processes considered to be undemocratic.

Another speaker was Adam Barnes, a member of the Electrical and Computer Engineering faculty and a member of the Executive Committee of the American Association of University Professors at UVA.

“We’ve been very concerned about the actions of the Board up to this point and the Department of Justice which have violated those norms, specifically the lack of transparency of the Board of Visitors in the ouster of our previous president Jim Ryan,” Barnes said. “They have given us very little information about how this was conducted, and this gives us pause as to what constraints, either real or perceived, will fall upon the incoming president.”

Barnes said other universities have signed compliance agreements with the Department of Justice that threaten academic freedom and that the Faculty Senate must be involved when that happens at UVA.

Professor Manuel Lerdau in Environmental Sciences said his father fled Germany in 1938 to escape persecution by the Nazis and came to the United States in 1949. He said claims that the Department of Justice’s involvement is necessary to fight antisemitism do not fit with Jewish

values.

“In 1987 I lived in Israel during the first Intifada, and 30 years later I was in Charlottesville with my children when modern Nazis, led by two UVa alumni, marched on this lawn chanting, ‘Blood and Soil’ and ‘Jews will not replace us’,” Lerdau said. “If the UVA Board of Visitors is committed to rooting out antisemitism, I implore the Board to support efforts aiming for a diverse, equitable, and inclusive university. “

Mullins said that as the search committee for the tenth president, UCW of UVA and other groups will continue to demand transparency.

“And I know that, in the past, Boards that seek presidents may look like this one, but this is not the past,” Mullins said. “This is a unique set of circumstances where a federal agency has interfered with our independence and the integrity of this institution.”

Students will begin to arrive on August 21 and classes are set to begin on August 26.

The steering committee guiding the search for UVA’s 10th president consists of:

• Rachel Sheridan, Committee Chair: Rector of the University; President, Virginia Athletics Foundation; Partner, Capital Markets Group, Kirkland & Ellis LLP; UVA alumna (B.A. ’94, J.D. ’98); current UVA parent
• Porter Wilkinson, Committee Vice Chair: Vice Rector of the University; Counselor and Chief of Staff to the Smithsonian Institution Board of Regents; UVA alumna (J.D. ’07) *
• Kenyon Bonner: Vice President and Chief Student Affairs Officer; current UVA parent
• Philip Bourne: Founding Dean, School of Data Science; Professor, Biomedical Engineering
• Marvin Bush: Vice President & Director at Winston Capital Management LLC and at Winston Partners Group LLC; Vice President of the Virginia Athletics Foundation; UVA alumnus (B.A. ’79)
• Quana Dennis: Doctoral student studying higher education; UVA alumnus (B.A. ’23, M.Ed ’24); Former faculty member at Saint Anne’s-Belfield School
• Jim Donovan: Member, UVA Board of Visitors; Vice Chairman of Global Client Coverage at Goldman Sachs; adjunct professor at UVA School of Law; board member at Karsh Institute of Democracy; current UVA parent
• Pam Edmonds: Trustee emerita of the College Foundation; trustee of UVA Health Foundation; UVA alumna (B.A. ’91); current UVA parent
• Marvin Gilliam: Member, UVA Board of Visitors; Owner and Manager, MAM Development, LLC; Trustee of the Virginia Athletics Foundation; UVA alumnus (B.A. ‘78)
• Peter Grant: Founding partner of AnchormarckHoldings, LLC; Chair of the recently concluded UVA Honor the Future capital campaign; UVA alumnus (B.A. ’78, M.B.A. ’86)
• John Harris: Member, UVA Board of Visitors; Private investor and previous managing director, chief financial officer and senior advisor for The Carlyle Group; UVA alumnus (B.S. ’82)
• Jim Lambert:Janet Scott Hamilton and John Downman Hamilton Professor at the UVA School of Engineering and Applied Science; UVA Board of Visitors faculty representative. Lambert earned a master’s degree from UVA in 1990 and a doctoral degree in 1994
• Dr. Babur Lateef: Former member, UVA Board of Visitors; former Chair, UVA Health System Board; Chairman of the Prince William County School
• Board; Founder and owner, Advanced Ophthalmology Inc.; current UVA graduate student
• David Leblang: Ambassador Henry J. Taylor and Mrs. Marion R. Taylor Endowed Professor of Politics at the College of Arts and Sciences, Professor of Public Policy at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy; Director of Policy Studies at UVA’s Miller Center of Public Affairs
• Paul Manning: Member, UVA Board of Visitors; Chair, UVA Health System Board; Chairman and CEO of PBM Capital
• George Keith Martin: Former Rector of the University; former Managing Partner, McGuireWoods LLP; UVA alumnus (B.A. ’75)
• Lori McMahon: UVA Vice President for Research; Professor of Neuroscience
• Sherri Moore: Associate Professor, General Faculty (McIntire); UVA alumna (B.A. ’85)
• John Nau: Member, UVA Board of Visitors; former chairman and CEO of Silver Eagle Distributors; UVA alumnus (B.A. ’68)
• Dr. David Okonkwo: Member, UVA Board of Visitors; Professor of Neurological Surgery at the University of Pittsburgh; UVA alumnus (B.A. ’94); current UVA parent
• Gregory Perryman: Current UVA student; UVA Board of Visitors student representative
• Amanda Pillion: Member, UVA Board of Visitors; Former mayor of the town of Abingdon, VA; UVA alumna (B.S. ’97, M.S.Ed. ‘99); current UVA parent
• Jimmy Reyes: Former member, UVA Board of Visitors; Owner of Reyes Holdings, LLC
• Adam Richard: Staff Senate Executive Committee Co-Chair
• Dr. Mitch Rosner: Chair, UVA Department of Medicine; Henry B. Mulholland Professor of Medicine; Interim Executive Vice President for Health Affairs at UVA Health
• Gretchen Walsh: Olympian, World Record Holder; NCAA Collegiate Woman Athlete of the Year; UVA Alumna (B.S. ‘25)
• Doug Wetmore: Member, UVA Board of Visitors; Senior Vice president for Business Development at Centauri Health Solutions, Inc.; UVA alumnus (B.A. ‘88, J.D. ‘91)
• Carla Williams: Director of Athletics; current UVA parent

Before you go: This segment was first sent out in the podcast edition of the newsletter on August 8, 2025 and then the text edition on August 11, 2025. At that point it should have been posted here, but that did not occur until August 13. One day there will be a more unified content management system but that day is not today. To learn more about the future of Town Crier Productions, click here.