The rector smiles and replies that she has heard these points already.
A couple of hours later, the faculty generals rally the troops ahead of a 3 p.m. board meeting to appoint an interim president and hear a statement from Sullivan. A mass e-mail commands, “FILL THE LAWN TODAY!!” By 2 p.m., supporters are gathering. The campus radio station, WTJU-FM, sets up a booth and begins broadcasting live.
An erosion of support for Helen Dragas, architect of UVA President Teresa Sullivan's removal.
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The U-Va. drama is the story of a power play gone awry, with missteps and miscalculations on all sides.
Before the meeting, Sullivan signs her resignation settlement, formalizing her departure on Aug. 15. Lawyer Raymond Cotton helped her negotiate it. Reinstatement, at this point, seems a long shot.
Dragas enters the Rotunda through a side door. Addressing the board, she expresses regret, not for the act of forcing Sullivan out, but for the manner of its execution. Dragas finishes her remarks, calls for a closed session and empties the boardroom.
About 3:30 p.m., an aide to Sullivan calls Laycock. The board is ready to see the president.
Sullivan enters the boardroom and sits down. In a measured tone, she reads a statement that takes an implicit swipe at Dragas and Kington.
“Corporate-style, top-down leadership does not work in a great university,” she says.
The board is silent when she finishes. Heywood Fralin, a Sullivan loyalist, thanks her for her service.
Sullivan walks outside. She has not planned to address the crowd. Her husband tells her she must.
The crowd quiets.
“You do great work here,” Sullivan says. “And I want to thank you for what you do and for making this a great university. At the end of the day, that’s the most important thing.”
Sullivan departs, but many supporters remain.
Inside, the board turns to naming a successor. The session quickly moves beyond who should lead the university to defining its mission. Board members speak in turn, and some grow emotional. The boardroom is cold and seems to grow colder as night falls.
The meeting stretches nearly 12 hours. Waiting in a hall outside, Cohen nods off in a chair.
At 2:30 a.m. Tuesday, the board votes 12 to 1 to appoint Zeithaml interim president. Two board members abstain; one is absent.
But the lopsided result conceals a deep division. There appears to be an 8-8 split on the board on the question of whether to keep Sullivan.
At 3 a.m. Tuesday, June 19, Zeithaml takes a call from Dragas. He is in London, where it is 8 a.m. She tells him the interim presidency is his. Zeithaml says he’ll take the job as long as the board “really wants me to do it.” Zeithaml agrees largely because he believes that Sullivan’s exit is irreversible.
That afternoon, Kington, the vice rector, resigns. “I believe that this is the right thing to do,” he tells the governor, “and I hope that it will begin a needed healing process at the university.”
His departure leaves the board with 15 voting members. Suddenly, it appears that Sullivan might have a majority.
“It’s not over,” Cohen tells a reporter.
In a conference call from Sweden, the governor tells reporters that the board has made missteps. “There are absolutely things they should have done differently,” he says.
William Wulf, a prominent computer science professor, announces his resignation. He blames the board for “dumb decisions.”
At 3 p.m., student journalist Krista Pedersen walks over to the Rotunda to collect a stack of documents the university released under public records law. The Cavalier Daily was the first publication to request the documents. Pedersen’s reward: a stack of e-mails written by Dragas and Kington.
The newspaper staff decides to release tidbits on Twitter. The e-mails show Dragas and Kington trading articles and opinion pieces as they mull over Sullivan’s removal.
On May 31, Dragas shared a Wall Street Journal editorial about an “online revolution” in higher education. She made a notation: “why we can’t afford to wait.”
In a June 11 e-mail, Kington pondered whether the university should answer a reporter’s questions, writing, “maybe a modicum of candor is called for.”
The e-mails trigger a torrent of criticism.
By Wednesday morning, June 20, Dragas’s hometown newspaper, the Virginian-Pilot, demands her resignation.
In a news conference that afternoon, Zeithaml, the incoming interim president, acknowledges “that some of you don’t trust me.” He claims “absolutely no intention” of seeking the permanent job. He says he does not support Sullivan’s ouster, and he compliments her “tremendous work.”
He predicts that the interim job will be his for a year.
In Richmond, a frustrated McDonnell has just returned from a nine-day trade mission to Europe. The first order of business: U-Va. He gathers aides for a 7 p.m. meeting. He is ready to jump into the fray. But how? He has insisted repeatedly that he can’t meddle in a university decision.
On Thursday morning, the governor arrives at his office with a plan. He will order the board to resolve the crisis. A subsequent event will help him set a deadline for board action: Just before 5 p.m., the board calls a special session for the following Tuesday to discuss “possible changes” in Sullivan’s contract.
At this point, the vote count is fluid. Six board members have publicly or privately endorsed reinstating Sullivan. Five others are thought to oppose her return, including Dragas. Four votes may be up for grabs.
To shore up her support, Dragas makes a final public appeal: a 10-point outline of challenges facing the university under Sullivan. The rector contends that the school lacks a coherent plan for everything from fundraising to class sizes to faculty pay.
Without one, she writes, the university “will continue to drift in yesterday.”
Her statement fails to quiet critics. Support for Sullivan is snowballing. Ten of the university’s 11 academic deans issue a joint statement Thursday calling for Sullivan’s return. The 11th, Zeithaml, had not been asked to sign because of his awkward situation. He telephones Dragas that evening to tell her that he is suspending his interim presidency until Sullivan’s future is resolved.
“I need to get out of the way here,” he tells her.
On Friday afternoon, McDonnell issues an ultimatum to board members: take charge, or he will fire them all. Period.
On Sunday, June 24, more than 1,500 people gather on the well-trod Lawn to “Rally for Honor.”
Speakers include Kenneth G. Elzinga, an economics professor who joined the faculty in 1967.
“The truth of the matter is all of us regret the forced resignation of Terry Sullivan,’’ he says. “All of us respectfully ask the board to atone for its actions. And all of us, I trust, are prepared to respond with gratitude, forgiveness and renewed enthusiasm.’’
Elzinga’s remarks touch someone who is not in the audience but who would read them later, someone who was once his student: Helen Dragas.
The idea of reinstating Sullivan already has entered the rector’s mind, partly because of the letter from the 10 deans, which convinces her that hey understand her concerns.
To Dragas, it appears that alumni, students and faculty are beginning to understand her drive for urgent changes to ensure that the historic university remains an academic power in the 21st century.
By the end of Sunday, Dragas begins to wonder: Should Terry stay?
Sullivan and her supporters approach the Tuesday meeting with rising confidence. The vote may be lopsided — this time in her favor.
But under what conditions would Sullivan return? Several days earlier, she had stipulated that she would come back if two people resigned: Dragas and Strine. The rector had met repeatedly with the chief operating officer and discussed the president’s performance in the weeks before the crisis hit. Strine said those meetings were part of his job and told his staff he was not involved in the ouster.
By Tuesday, Sullivan has dropped those demands. She has heard that it is likely that McDonnell will reappoint Dragas to the board at the end of the month.
At 1 p.m., Dragas phones Sullivan and offers to walk her from the presidential home to the Rotunda for the climactic board meeting two hours later. They talk for 10 minutes in Sullivan’s home.
They cross University Avenue together, their husbands walking behind them.
Dragas and Sullivan take their seats at opposite sides of the board table.
Fralin, the Sullivan ally, asks for a roll call to rescind the amendment to Sullivan’s contract that spelled out the terms of her resignation. As he speaks, Dragas fidgets with her glasses. Sullivan stares straight ahead, expressionless, hands folded in her lap.
Dragas asks to speak. The moment she begins, Sullivan’s fate is clear.
“It’s time to bring the U-Va. family back together,” she says. “I believe real progress is more possible than ever now. It is unfortunate that we had to have a near-death experience to get here.”
When the ballot comes to Dragas, she votes “an unequivocal yes.” The final tally is unanimous. Cheers erupt on the Lawn.
As the meeting adjourns, Fralin tells his colleagues that Sullivan is heading outside to speak to the crowd. He wants the board to stand behind her.
Sullivan steps up to a lectern, dressed in a bright blue suit with an orange blouse beneath, the school colors. She beseeches the campus community to unite.
As the crowd roars its approval, Sullivan and her supporters celebrate. Dragas stands a few feet behind the president, her lips frozen in a tight smile. After a few moments, the rector turns and vanishes back into the Rotunda.
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