Digital Futures

This paper looks at the 2012 case at the University of Virginia (UVA) when the Board of Visitors ousted the president Teresa Sullivan, then reinstated her in light of very public protests by the faculty and others in the community.
After a review of the governance literature and various models I have attempted to address four key questions: Was firing the president a reasonable action on their part? Could the board at UVA have done anything differently to avoid the fall out? Does the board activity at UVA teach us anything significant that other organizations should be aware of? and Is the role of the board going to change, within a shared governance model given societal and higher education developments?

Northeastern University’s ten-year strategic goal has been to climb the US News rankings, which it has achieved in part by becoming a much more selective institution. Fall 2014 saw 49,822 undergraduate applications for 2,800 seats - a ratio of 18 applicants per seat, rejection of 95% of all applicants. The question becomes whether an elite or an aspiring elite institution, one that was formed with social-responsibility at its core, can offer access to different target audiences given amended administrative priorities. Northeastern claims in its mission statement to utilize its “knowledge and resources as positive forces for change in both our local communities and our global society.” This paper assesses the efficacy of one strategy that is being employed in the attempt to do just that.