VCU enters semester with fully Youngkin-appointed board

Molly Manning, News Editor

Andrew Kerley, Executive Editor

VCU is entering the academic year with every member of its highest governing board appointed by Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin. The newly-appointed members will take their seats amid high tensions as Democrats and Republicans fight for control of Virginia’s institutes of higher education.

Universities in Virginia are governed by boards of visitors made up of 16 members appointed by the governor and confirmed by the General Assembly. The boards hold the power to budget, hire and fire presidents, shape university policy and approve course curricula. 

Board members serve four-year terms and tend to be community figureheads, business leaders and former elected officials with university ties. The governor appoints four new board members annually. With Youngkin approaching the end of his term as governor, he made his fourth routine round of appointments in June — phasing out all but one of former Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam’s appointees.

In June, Youngkin appointed Shamin Hotels CEO Neil Amin, real estate developer Lara Tyler Chambers and Lori Jennings, the founder of tech employment firm Jennings Prosearch. He also reappointed CoStar founder and CEO Andy Florance, who was initially appointed by Northam in 2021.

The new appointees have made political donations to both Democrats and Republicans, according to the Virginia Public Access Project. Amin has donated $1,000 to each party respectively. Chambers donated $500 to the Democratic Northam campaign in 2017.

Ellen Fitzsimmons, a former executive for Truist Bank and railway company CSX, was named the new rector, or leader, of the board in June. She has donated $25,000 to Republicans across Youngkin’s Spirit of Virginia PAC and Republican gubernatorial nominee Winsome Earle-Sears’ campaign.

The board has made a number of contentious decisions in recent years. They voted in March to dismantle VCU’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion policies following an executive order from President Donald Trump, according to a previous report by The Commonwealth Times. VCU could have risked losing hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding by not complying with the order.

The board voted in 2024 to cancel the implementation of a racial literacy course requirement, resulting in some students walking out during their graduation ceremony. The requirement — which covered topics such as systemic racism, gender studies and workplace inequality — was in development by students and faculty for years before getting cancelled. 

Virginia’s university board appointment system came into question over the summer as Senate Democrats called a meeting in June to reject eight of Youngkin’s appointees to George Mason University, the University of Virginia and Virginia Military Institute — who they said were too politically partisan for the roles, according to Virginia Scope. 

Democrats successfully sued the boards of those universities to enforce their rejections, though Republican Attorney General Jason Miyares recently appealed the decision to the Supreme Court of Virginia.

Democrats also held a press conference in July to “protect our number one ranked schools” after Trump’s Department of Justice opened investigations into GMU over allegations of antisemitism and race-based hiring and admissions practices, which Democrats called an effort to oust GMU president Gregory Washington. Former UVa president Jim Ryan resigned in June under similar pressure from the Trump administration — without the backing of the UVa board.

Former VCU Board of Visitors member, Rev. Tyrone Nelson of Sixth Mount Zion Baptist Church, said the ideology of the board was more in line with the ideology of the university before Youngkin’s appointees began holding a majority.

“[VCU] is a place of diversity, equity, a home for everyone,” Nelson said. “We embraced who individuals were, where they came from, their homeland. It wasn’t this facade of ‘there are no differences.’”

Nelson said he is not sure if the new board will safeguard the university from Trump’s pressure — who Nelson said uses his strength to make public institutions bow down more than any other president in history.

“I just don’t see how VCU can be what it was in the past,” Nelson said.

Mark Wood, an associate professor in the school of world studies, is a board member for United Campus Workers at VCU. He believes the governance structure of the board is not representative of VCU and Richmond community members impacted by their decisions. It is important to address not only the partisan appointments, but the structure of university governance. 

“There should be members of the board elected by the people they represent, in this case the faculty, staff and students at VCU and community members,” Wood said. 

Wood said the board should be structured like a council of constituents and cited the racial literacy decision as disappointing, and exemplary of the lack of community representation on the board.

“These people are visitors, they’re from other worlds, mostly the world of for-profit industry,” Wood said.

Fitzsimmons told The CT in a statement that the board is focused on affordability for students, updating facilities, meeting student housing needs and continuing VCU’s growing research initiatives.

The governor asks board members to take their financial and governance responsibilities seriously, Fitzsimmons stated. When asked if the board will act in the best interest of students, faculty and staff in a non-partisan manner, Fitzsimmons stated “the board is dedicated to the university and its mission.”.

The VCU Board of Visitors is set to meet on Sept. 4 for an in-person orientation of the new members. Two additional meetings are scheduled for Sept. 11-12, where the board will provide updates on enrollment, the budget and other significant projects, according to Fitzsimmons.