UVA’s New Strategic Plan: What is Says, and Doesn’t Say

President Beardsley's decision to formulate a new long-term strategic plan for UVA is a welcome one, especially since the last plan, produced under President Jim Ryan, read like a blueprint to transform the University into an aggrandized version of an Ivy-like public University shaped by the socially politicized academic world of the late 2010s. 

The "key early priorities" President Beardsley has announced are, for the most part, generic no-brainers: "faculty excellence," "exceptional student experience," "robust research infrastructure." "Access and affordability" is more than a talking point, however;  it's a real problem that previous administrations have ignored as tuition and costs have skyrocketed while UVA's administrative bloat has metastasized. "World-class patient care" is essential, particularly after the worst scandal in the history of the UVA Health System. And "outstanding athletics" is fine, but at what cost – when some "student athletes" now earn in a year what most of their classmates might hope to make in a decade?

The most suspect priority is "global opportunities and impact." UVA's foremost obligations are to educate students of the Commonwealth, then students from other states, and ultimately to help form the next generation of American leaders. Before chasing opportunities and impacts overseas, shouldn't UVA be focusing on getting our own house in order in view of the massive turmoil that our last administration inflicted on UVA?

But the most telling thing about President Beardsley's list are the two key priorities it leaves out: the degradation of our famed Honor System and the critical lack of thought diversity on Grounds.

The Honor System: For more than a century, the Honor System was the cornerstone of life at UVA — not merely a set of rules but, for generations of alumni, the soul of the institution. Today it is no more than a shadow of its former self. The Board of Visitors is formally charged in its foundational manual with the preservation and maintenance of the Honor System, a duty it has effectively abandoned. President Beardsley himself must surely be aware of how dysfunctional things have become: we received reports in April 2025 from multiple sources of a major Fall 2024 cheating scandal at Darden while he was Dean that was quietly kept from public view; in fact, Honor Committee public summaries now show that 64% of the Informed Retractions that semester were made by Darden students (who only comprise about 4% of the student population) Indeed, the priorities of the past administrations speak for themselves: President Ryan's own strategic plan mentioned "diverse" some 21 times and "honor" just 4.

Ultimately, the greatest success UVA has had over the decades has been turning out students of honor, character, and integrity. Isn't that of greater importance than prioritizing UVA having a greater global presence?

Thought diversity: Another major omission from President Beardsley’s list of priorities is finally establishing some type of meaningful thought diversity among UVA’s faculty, administration, and student body. The lack thereof at UVA as well as most other universities throughout the nation has finally become a major issue of contention among higher education commentators. The truth is self-evident that without meaningful thought diversity the result is an echo chamber monoculture, which acts as a significant deterrent to true freedom of expression.

This chilling effect on freedom of expression at UVA led to the professor who has taught more students than any other in the history of the University to call this situation a “tragedy.” It also led to a public shaming of UVA less than two years ago when Joe Scarborough on national TV decried the suppression of freedom of expression at UVA by noting sadly that his UVA daughter is afraid to raise her hand in class and say something politically incorrect because she is afraid of being “cancelled” and being “shunned” and “destroyed.” It's why UVA earned "F" grades from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) for "self-censorship" and "political tolerance." It is why the 2026 FIRE report shows that the ratio of liberal to conservative students at UVA is significantly higher (5.29:1) than at comparable state universities like Chapel Hill and Florida, and higher than such comparables like Duke and Vanderbilt—and incredibly, it is even higher than such Ivies as Dartmouth, Princeton, and Columbia. It is why UVA was just ranked #20 in Niche’s new ranking of the most liberal colleges in the nation.

There is nothing more important at an institution of higher learning than having a true level playing field for the free and civil exchange of ideas without fear of retribution.

So here is the question for President Beardsley and his committee: Is raising more money, putting up more buildings, and winning more football games more important than a culture in which students and faculty can speak freely without fear of reprisal? Ensuring meaningful diversity of thought should be the first item on this administration's list, unless the administration fears the reaction from the University's most vocal and politicized faculty. We hope President Beardsley will have the courage and foresight to make UVA live up to the ideals of individual rights and freedom that our Founders set forth when they established our great University.