Few members of the Board of Visitors have been as influential as Gordon Rainey, who this year steps down from the BOV after two four-year terms. He was rector during restructuring, and since 2006 he has been chairman of UVA’s $3 billion capital campaign, which he will continue to lead.
“I just love the place, from the first moment I arrived in 1958,” says Rainey, a graduate of both the college and the law school. C-VILLE stole a few minutes of Rainey’s vacation time in Jackson Hole to get some reflection on his BOV experience.
C-VILLE: You’ve been on other boards at UVA. How different was this one?
Gordon Rainey: I thought I knew a good bit about the University when I was serving on the Alumni Board, but after I was appointed to the BOV, I pretty quickly realized I knew very little. It’s a very complex operation, lot of moving parts, a $2 billion plus operation budget, and just a lot to say grace over. It took a while to understand it.
 Former BOV member Gordon Rainey is confident about the future of the University—and the world at large. “I would see a lot of young people in the course of being chair of student affairs and athletics committee. I can tell you, the world is not going to hell in a handbasket.” |
Also, it took a while to understand, learn and appreciate the almost myriad constituencies the University of Virginia has. It’s obvious, but it’s students, parents, patients, faculty, administration, and the various foundations around Grounds. Every one of those constituencies is extremely important to the smooth operating of the University.
What were some difficult decisions that pitted some constituencies against others?
Everything that came before us was, in the minds of some constituencies, controversial, including the alumni engagement initiative and spinning off our investment management operation into a separate corporation. The charter legislation that we were able to get through the General Assembly that created greater autonomy for the University—it wasn’t easy to get it adopted, but I think it’s going to prove in time to be tremendously important to the University.
Every major decision that was made was made with the concurrence of the Board of Visitors, and frequently there was not full agreement [initially]. That sometimes was the case with projects, such as the South Lawn Project. We went through three or four iterations of that before we all got comfortable with that. It’s very much a hands-on board.
There’s a tension sometimes between serving Virginia residents and being a world-class university. How did you approach that?
The University hasn’t forgotten, and never will forget, that it has a strong public mandate in Virginia, so there will always be a significantly lower tuition for Virginia residents than it is for out of state residents.
The Board is very sensitive to not pricing the cost of an education at the University of Virginia beyond the reach of middle-income families. We implemented the AccessUVA program, which I think has been an enormously important thing to have done.
What are some of the biggest decisions coming down the pike for the Board of Visitors?
The University has, for a hundred years, had a wonderful reputation in the humanities, but we have never been anything as well known nationally or internationally in science and technology and in the arts. Those are both areas of emphasis. I expect this Access UVA program to rise, in the number of kids enrolling under it.
The other thing is the service component. It was Mr. Frank Batten’s gift that enabled us to establish the school for public policy and service. It’s a tremendously important thing.
How difficult will it be to replace President John Casteen and Chief Operating Officer Leonard Sandridge?
I think those two have formed a partnership that is the envy of higher education in America, and it’s going to be a very tall order working through the transition to new leadership. I’m confident the University will manage through that process in a splendid way like it always does.
How daunting is that $1.3 billion you still have to raise for the capital campaign?
We’ll raise that. We have so many wonderful people working on it, and we have a wonderful national organization. I spend a lot of time going around the country trying to raise money for the University and I see alumni groups all around the country, and every one of them is the same. It is the power of that student experience they never got over.