Kibbe Resigns, Expanding UVA Leadership Vacuum

The Jefferson Council calls for Board of Visitors to take action.

Melina Kibbe, dean of the University of Virginia Medical School, has been offered a job at the University of Texas Health Center at Houston, and will be officially named president after a 21-day waiting period, reports the Daily Progress.

“I look forward to building on UTHealth Houston’s legacy of innovation and excellence to strengthen our communities across the state and nation,” she said in the UTHealth statement making the announcement.

Kibbe’s impending departure worsens the leadership void at the University of Virginia where the positions of president, provost, and CEO of the health system are also open. There is no sign that UVA is close to filling any of those key positions permanently — or even appointing an interim president to serve until the top office can be filled permanently. The search for a new provost, which began in February with the aim of filling the position by August, has been rebooted and may not be filled until a president is selected.

Additionally, Bacon’s Rebellion has learned from an informed source that another top executive, UVA Health Medical Center CEO Wendy Horton, has just accepted a job offer from the University of California-San Francisco.

“UVA is in a leadership crisis,” charges Joel Gardner, president of the Jefferson Council, an alumni group focused on governance issues at the University. “The board is doing nothing!”

“Rome is burning,” declares Bert Ellis, a former UVA board member who was fired by Governor Glenn Youngkin for his confrontational style demanding more forceful action and now serves on the executive committee of the Jefferson Council. “We need a board meeting.”

Several board members had planned Monday to call a special board meeting to address the leadership void, Bacon’s Rebellion has learned from multiple sources, but Governor Glenn Youngkin was informed of the initiative and scuttled it over the weekend. Normally, the rector schedules special meetings, but the board manual allows three or more regular members to call a meeting. All meetings must be published seven days in advance.

Several board members feel an increasing sense of urgency to fill the key positions while the Board is still controlled by Youngkin appointees. There is an increasing sense of foreboding that Democrat Abigail Spanberger will succeed Youngkin as governor in January and will side with state senate Democrats who want to stack the Board with allies and influence the selection of UVA’s next president.

The Senate Privileges & Elections Committee rejected the nomination of former GOP Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli in June. Youngkin contended that only the full Senate could ax his nominees. Democrat lawmakers followed up by filing a lawsuit in Fairfax County Circuit Court to fast-track an injunction that would prevent Cuccinelli and seven board nominees at other universities from filling their appointed roles. That case is scheduled to be heard July 25.

According to my sources, the reason given for cancelling the special board meeting was Cuccinelli’s up-in-the-air legal status as a board member. Youngkin wanted to delay calling a special board meeting until after the July 25 court case. Aside from arguing that Cuccinelli has a rock-solid legal case, board members who wished to push forward saw no reason that he could not participate in board deliberations but refrain from voting so the outcome of any vote could not be contested if the court ruling didn’t go his way.

The controversy over UVA leadership occurs against a backdrop of a Department of Justice inquiry into racial preferences and Diversity, Equity & Inclusion at UVA, the resignation of President Jim Ryan, and a vote of no-confidence by the Faculty Senate against the Board of Visitors. The DOJ had accused the University of stonewalling its lawful requests for information. The departure of Ryan, who was seen as the source of obstruction, seems to have mollified the DOJ for the moment, but the University has yet to reach a legal settlement with the Trump administration.

The new rector, Rachel Sheridan, is caught between a rock and a hard place. The DOJ charges are serious, she has told the Faculty Senate, but she is under strict instructions not to discuss the particulars of the case. Unsympathetic, the Faculty Senate voted 46 to 6 to pass a resolution of no confidence in the Board for failing to protect the University and its president “from outside interference.” Meanwhile, many Board of Visitors members are getting restless because they feel that Sheridan has kept them out of the loop. She is viewed by several as aloof and uncommunicative. As one board member told me, a one-sentence email update every so often would be nice.

UVA’s upper-echelon brain drain began in January when Provost Ian Baucom announced his intention to resign at the end of the school year to take a job as president of Middlebury College. UVA formed a search committee, the composition of which became a source of contention. The 14-member group included only two BoV members and one politically conservative faculty member. The committee conducted a nationwide search with the goal of presenting three or four candidates to Ryan (who was still president), who in turn would select one and present it to the board.

My sources tell me that Ryan blocked the one candidate preferred by a large cross-section of the board, forcing the committee to regroup and begin again. Now the concern is that any decision will have to wait until the next president is on board so he or she can have input into the selection of the person he or she will have to work with so closely.

In February, Craig Kent, UVA Health CEO and executive vice president for Health Affairs, stepped down after the conclusion of an investigation into charges of abusive practices by UVA Health leadership. The findings were never made public, but Kent fell on his sword and submitted his resignation. He was replaced by interim CEO Mitch Rosner. Although she had been ensnared by the allegations, Kibbe stayed in her position as dean of the medical school.

The departure of Kibbe as well as Horton, CEO of the UVA Health Medical Center, the main unit of the health system, leaves three of the UVA health division’s top executives vacant or served by an interim figure.

Ryan submitted his resignation in late June. The DOJ had requested, then later demanded, documentation that UVA’s policies and practices were following DOJ guidance on racial preferences and the dismantling of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion. DOJ expressed increasing frustration as UVA failed to deliver the documentation on a timely basis. He also infuriated many board members by signing a group letter publicly criticizing DOJ for its coercive tactics. The circumstances of his resignation are not clear, although in his public statements he implied that the DOJ wanted his head. He could not, he wrote, “make a unilateral decision to fight the federal government in order to save my own job.” Ryan surprised many by adding that he had planned to step down at the end of the next academic year anyway.

According to UVA protocol, Chief Operating Officer J.J. Davis was elevated to “acting” president. Next steps are to quickly appoint an “interim” president to serve until a permanent president can be chosen after a lengthier, more thorough search.

As Vice Rector Porter Wilkinson explained to the Faculty Senate, the Board of Visitors intends to hold a listening session much like was done for the provost search.” The goal, she said, is to get meaningful input from the faculty senate, general faculty, deans, student leaders and health system leaders.

Wilkinson implied that that interim president would come from within UVA. “We fully expect the interim president will be someone who already knows and loves this place and will have the trust of the community during this difficult time.”

The search for a permanent president, she said, will be a more formal affair involving setting up a search committee and hiring a national search firm, neither of which has been done yet.

How long will all this take? The tentative goal is to announce an interim president “in the next several weeks,” Wilkinson said. The presidential search will take much longer. “We have no artificial timeline for the presidential search,” she said.

Even before the news broke of Kibbe’s leaving, the Jefferson Council had called for a Board of Visitors meeting to address the leadership vacuum. President Joel Gardner released the following statement Friday:

It is now two weeks since the resignation of President Ryan, leaving UVA without a president and provost. It is unclear why the Board of Visitors has failed to meet during this crucial period to choose an interim president and reinstitute what certainly appears to have been a failed search process for a provost.

There are numerous qualified individuals present at The University who could fill the role as interim president while a more extensive search is instituted to choose a new president. President Ryan’s resignation and the lack of any real progress on the provost search has resulted in a tangible sense of uncertainty on Grounds. We therefore urge the BOV to meet as soon as possible to:

1. Name an interim president who is a current member of The University community;

2. Form the committee to immediately begin the search process for our new president;

3. Reinstitute the search process for our new provost; and

4. Address both the unresolved DEI violations and the antisemitic gun incident that are the subjects of continuing scrutiny. 

UVA deserves better. It is time for the Board of Visitors to get serious and get to work.