Proposed legislation would force public Virginia universities to livestream board of visitors meetings
Illustration by Killian Goodale-Porter.
Emily Grinstead, Contributing Writer
A new bill would require all public universities in Virginia to livestream governing board meetings, such as their boards of visitors.
Delegate Keith Hodges, who represents a swath of the Middle Peninsula, introduced House Bill 2452 on Jan. 8. Hodges talked about the goals of the bill in a Senate education and health committee meeting on Feb. 13.
“This legislation mandates greater transparency and accountability for public institutions of higher education by requiring their governing boards to livestream meetings, record and archive them and ensure accessibility for the public,” Hodges said in the committee meeting.
Hodges said the bill would benefit Virginians by increasing transparency and oversight between the public and “taxpayer funded institutions.”
“Virginians value government transparency and fiscal accountability, which this bill promotes,” Hodges said.
HB 2452 follows legislation passed in 2021 which required universities to make governing board meetings accessible to the public. However, the bill proposed by Hodges would establish a uniform standard which every university would follow. The bill has passed the House of Delegates and is now awaiting approval by the Senate.
Hodges is working with some universities, as well as the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia and the Library of Virginia, in developing this standard.
VCU livestreams all their Board of Visitors meetings, minutes and agendas which are accessible on its website.
Wayne Clampitt, a third-year urban studies student, said they are not aware of the decisions the BOV makes, but said the meetings should be announced and the students should be made aware of the decisions made.
“They just have so much control over what happens on campus that I feel like I would like to know what’s going on in the meetings,” Clampitt said.
Keila Vanda, a second-year forensic biology student, said she was not aware the BOV meetings were live streamed by VCU. She said it is important for students to understand what happens in these meetings, particularly in regards to funding.
“There’s a lot of other things that that funding is going towards that you aren’t really aware of, and it’s something you should be aware of,” Vanda said, “It’s your money. You’re paying for all of these very various things. I want to know what that’s going towards.”
Vanda also said the information regarding the meetings should be easily accessible to students, who may not know how to access the information.
“Actively putting it somewhere that students are regularly checking means that it’ll become more aware to the students and it’ll have more of the transparency that they’re clearly striving for,” Vanda said.
Theo Mastio, a third-year anthropology student, has attended multiple BOV meetings in-person, said the meetings should be more accessible and announced to the student body at VCU.
“I believe that there should be transparency in how we spend our money and where we spend our money and it shouldn’t just be visible on a website somewhere,” Mastio said, “It should be front page, it should be something that I can easily find and I can understand well.”
Mastio said there should be student representatives in the decision making process. A student representative would best understand the “plight” and the “needs” of students.
“I was looking through a list of the board and I’m seeing, you know, CEO after CEO, and I’m not seeing a student representative,” Mastio said.
The university’s BOV has two student representatives, one undergraduate and one graduate, but they possess no voting power, according to its website.
