VMI Alumni Open Letter Raises Governance Issues Relevant to UVA

A couple of weeks ago, Walter Smith raised questions about the lack of accountability of the leadership of the University of Virginia Alumni Association. Graduates of the Virginia Military Institute are asking similar questions about the VMI Alumni Association, whose governing rules allow a hermetically sealed oligarchy to perpetuate itself.Dissident UVa alumni may find the Open Letter penned by their VMI counterparts to be worth reading.Once upon a time, nobody cared how alumni associations were governed. As long as they held good reunion parties, it didn't matter. But alumni associations have evolved into adjuncts of university administrations, becoming critical partners in university fund-raising campaigns, purveyors of pro-administration propaganda, and implicit supporters of "progressive" policies pursued by those administrations. Whose interests does UVa's alumni uphold -- those of the alumni, or those of the UVa adminstration?

James Bacon

After a 25-year career in Virginia journalism, James A. Bacon founded Bacon’s Rebellion in 2002 a blog with the goal of “Reinventing Virginia for the 21st Century.” Its focus is on building more prosperous, livable and sustainable communities. In recent years he has concentrated more on the spread of “woke” ideology in K-12 schools, the criminal justice system, higher education, and medicine.

In 2021, he co-founded The Jefferson Council to preserve free speech, intellectual diversity, and the Jeffersonian legacy at his alma mater the University of Virginia. He previously served as the organization’s executive director, now serving as congributing editor.

Aside from blogging, Bacon writes books. His first was Boomergeddon: How Runaway Deficits Will Bankrupt the Country and Ruin Retirement for Aging Baby Boomers — And What You Can Do About It, followed by Maverick Miner: How E. Morgan Massey Became a Coal Industry Legend and a work of science fiction, Dust Mites: the Siege of Airlock Three.

A Virginian through-and-through, Bacon lives in Richmond with his wife Laura.

https://www.baconsrebellion.com/wp/
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