Tag: UVA

More than three years after it filed a $30 million lawsuit against the software company hired to design an electronic records system for its hospital, UVA heads to Charlottesville Circuit Court this week, and while the suit is expected to suck up an unusually large amount of the court’s time, it’s just the latest chapter in a battle over new technology that’s lasted 13 years.

According to UVA’s complaint, the deal dates to 1999, when UVA contracted with tech firm IDX to develop an electronic medical record system, or EMR, for its hospital. But problems started early, UVA claimed, with IDX failing to hit milestones on the multi-phase project. When technology company GE took over IDX in 2006, the parties got together to rework the contract. But UVA said the issues continued, and it ultimately pulled the plug, saying GE failed to meet its obligations.

GE, meanwhile, claimed it was UVA that broke contract. The two parties had agreed to work together on the complicated project, according to the company’s counterclaim. UVA was to act as a development partner, collecting and processing two decades’ worth of patient data and building and testing the system. But the medical center didn’t hold up its end of the bargain, said GE, making it impossible for the company to stay on schedule.

By 2007, UVA was dragging its feet, said GE, pushing off its own deadlines and quietly looking for another company to finish the project. GE said that in June 2008, the University announced it was searching for a new vendor.

In February 2009, UVA awarded a $60 million contract to Epic Systems Corporation and filed suit against GE, demanding the $20 million it had paid the company and $10 million in damages. GE wants $1.6 million it claims it’s still owed by UVA, as well as unspecified compensation for lost profits and expenditures.

Besides involving big names and big numbers, the suit also highlights the fact that contract squabbles slowed the UVA medical center’s adoption of a comprehensive system for digitized medical records—technology that industry and the government now consider essential. Many large teaching hospitals, including those at Duke, Vanderbilt, and the University of Wisconsin, had patient and prescription records in place for years before UVA fully implemented EMR in 2010 and 2011.

Neither UVA’s nor GE’s attorneys responded to requests for comment, and a medical center spokesman said he couldn’t discuss current litigation. But Charlottesville civil attorney Robert Yates, who isn’t involved in the suit, said that in a battle over who broke a deal first, it’s rare to find litigants settling out of court.
“It’s very difficult for these parties to get together, because they get entrenched in saying who owes who money,” said Yates.

In many ways, the suit isn’t that different from any other contract dispute, but it’s generated some buzz in the local legal community, he said, because it’s got a very big footprint.

Circuit Court Judge Edward Hogshire has been sifting through thousands of pages of filings in the case, and has set aside three weeks to hear it because of the amount of complex technical testimony involved. The sheer volume of evidence attorneys will be slogging through was a big part of why it took so long to get the case on the docket, Yates said.

“You can imagine the scope of a contract of this magnitude in terms of the data—20 years of medical records, and however many hundreds of thousands if not millions of patients,” he said. “The legal issues are not that complicated. It’s the evidence that’s complicated.”

Over the course of 16 days, anger, confusion, and ultimately resolution washed over UVA’s Grounds in the turmoil following President Teresa Sullivan’s removal. Here’s the breakdown of the saga—one resignation and one reaction at a time at a time—from the moment the surprise announcement came to the day she was reinstated.

The bomb drops
Instead of enjoying brunch and the beautiful weather, the UVA community got a nasty shock on the morning of Sunday, June 10. Around 11:30am, Rector Helen Dragas sent an e-mail announcing President Teresa Sullivan’s resignation, effective August 15. Sullivan was quoted in the e-mail saying she and the Board have “philosophical differences,” and Dragas went into little detail about the decision.

Sunday afternoon was quiet while word spread and the community began to process, but the Faculty Senate responded the following day. Chairman George Cohen released a statement on Monday calling the Board’s explanation “inadequate and unsatisfactory.”

Revelations and reactions
On Tuesday, June 12, the Richmond Times Dispatch reported on a leaked e-mail from Darden School Foundation Chairman Peter Kiernan, in which he told his colleagues he had been sworn to secrecy about the decision to oust Sullivan, adding that the situation was under control. “Trust me,” he wrote, “Helen has things well in hand.” Meanwhile, alumnus Bob Eckerd created an online petition to reinstate Sullivan.

The next day, Dragas released a statement saying the Board fo Visitors had had an “ongoing dialogue with the President,” and asked the UVA community for support in in joining together “in partnership to create that bright future.” Suzie McCarthy, a UVA graduate student, created a Facebook group called “Students, Faculty, Family, & Friends United to Reinstate Sullivan,” which soon had more than 16,000 members. The Board announced it would have a meeting on Monday, June 18, to discuss candidates for the interim presidency.
A day later, Cohen released a resolution after the Executive Council met with Dragas that declared the Faculty Senate’s support for Sullivan and expressed a lack of confidence in the Board of Visitors. The same day, Peter Kiernan stepped down from his position with the Darden School Foundation.

The boiling point 
Sullivan’s supporters began gathering on the Lawn around 2pm on Monday, June 18. Protestors held signs quoting Thomas Jefferson while Cohen spoke and reporters from publications all over the region took notes and photos. In a brief open session, Dragas read a four-page statement, apologizing for the past week’s turmoil but offering minimal explanation for the decision. Drama professor Gweneth West then read the statement Sullivan delivered to the Board, which received applause, laughter, and tears, and sounded very much like a goodbye. Sullivan herself then offered a few words to the crowd.

Many assumed the Board’s closed session would wrap up quickly. But the meeting went on until 2:30am, when the Board voted to appoint McIntire Dean Carl Zeithaml as interim president. Heywood Fralin cast the only “no” vote, and most Board members refused media comment following the meeting.

The aftermath 
Though the Board came to a kind of conclusion during the marathon meeting, the drama on Grounds wasn’t over. Around the time Vice Rector Mark Kington announced his resignation from the Board of Visitors, computer science professor William Wulf and his wife Anita Jones resigned as well, and Wulf encouraged other faculty to follow suit.

Despite his hesitation to accept the “daunting” position as interim president, Zeithaml made himself available to the media and fielded questions about why he took the job and how he would move the University toward recovery. After the press conference, the Cavalier Daily released a series of e-mails between Dragas and Kington that detailed their thinking in the days before Sullivan’s resignation was announced.

Change of heart? 
Eleven days after announcing Sullivan’s forced resignation, the Board of Visitors said it would meet again on Tuesday, June 26 to “discuss possible changes in the terms of employment of the president.” On the same day, 10 of the 11 University deans called for Sullivan’s reinstatement, and Dragas released a list of “difficult challenges” she said justified the Board’s actions.

Three days after accepting the position, Zeithaml announced on Friday, June 22, his decision to step aside and suspend all activities as interim president. Governor McDonnell stepped in, telling Board members to make a final decision Tuesday or he would ask for their resignations.

The weekend was mostly quiet as Wahoos anxiously awaited the meeting, but about 1,500 people gathered on the Lawn on Sunday for a “Rally for Honor,” during which several faculty members spoke and urged the Board to reconsider its position.

Reinstated and it feels so good 
Sullivan’s supporters took over the Lawn one last time around 2:30pm Tuesday, June 26. As Sullivan and Dragas entered the Rotunda side by side, the crowd held a minute of silence for every day since Sullivan’s ousting, while reporters from news outlets all over the country, including the New York Times and the Atlantic Monthly made themselves comfortable in the viewing room. After a quick 30-minute meeting and a unanimous Board vote, Sullivan emerged on the steps to address the crowd as UVA’s newly reinstated president.

But the president wasn’t the only one to receive word last week that she gets to keep her job. On Friday afternoon, Governor Bob McDonnell reappointed Dragas for another term on the Board of Visitors, saying that while he believed the Board had made mistakes under the much-criticized rector, “this is not a time for recrimination. It’s a time for reconciliation.”

Leaf to the back of University of Georgia sociology professor Joseph Hermanowicz’s 2011 book The American Academic Profession: Transformation in Contemporary Higher Education, and you’ll find a familiar name.

A few weeks ago, Teresa Sullivan’s contribution to the book, an essay on the institutional importance of university faculty that was written while she was still provost at the University of Michigan, might have been called thoughtful. Well-reasoned. Insightful, even.

Now, it’s hard to call it anything but prescient.

“As funding becomes tighter, and as the timeline for decision making grows shorter, decision making is likely to become more centralized, with fewer opportunities for input,” she wrote. “Under these conditions, administrators are likely to become more reliant on specialists in finance.”

But faculty input is key, Sullivan said—even though it’s increasingly under threat.

“Shared governance is the tenet of the academic profession that may be in the greatest jeopardy,” her conclusion reads. “Maintaining professional solidarity in the face of intellectual diversity and shifting loyalties between discipline and university may prove to be the most difficult task for the faculty.”

Professors at UVA, at least, have proved to be the exception. Their fierce, organized pushback in the wake of the forced resignation of their well-liked president gained national attention, and ultimately, their relentless pressure and ability to rally other members of the University community was the driving force behind the Board’s decision to reverse its decision and reinstate Sullivan.

But can they keep their momentum and spin a public victory into a more permanent expanded role in UVA’s governance?

Blindsided
It’s safe to say George Cohen had no idea what he was in for when he became chairman of the Faculty Senate on June 1. The genial law professor was nine days in and enjoying a family vacation in San Diego when the news of Sullivan’s resignation hit.

“I certainly spent more time in my hotel room on my iPad than I’d intended,” he said. Days later, he returned to a university already in an uproar, and presided over what was probably the most well-attended meeting of the Faculty Senate in UVA’s history.

The faculty, and especially the Senate leadership, spoke out early and forcefully against the ouster. They filled the Lawn for a series of protests and vigils. They held office hours to sign colleagues up for work groups and task forces. And they kept their departments’ students and alumni in the loop with a steady stream of e-mails.

Cohen said the scope and intensity of the reaction on Grounds was completely unexpected. But as details of the secretive ouster leaked out, he said, the faculty recognized that they could—and should—have a significant role in keeping pressure on the Board, because their positions gave them power others within the community lacked.

“We couldn’t really say everything about the people who talked to us and helped us, because they were in a more vulnerable position than we were,” he said. “Tenure is still a valuable thing. The faculty were the people who really could speak out on this issue, and we tried to do that in as respectful a way as we could.”

Ultimately, it worked, and now there’s a sense that those who want to see faculty play a bigger role in university governance have a chance to make a move.

Much of the anger over the secretive attempt to remove Sullivan was directed at UVA Rector Helen Dragas, who has since apologized for the way the Board of Visitors handled the affair. (Photo by Cole Geddy/UVA Public Affairs)

Shifting power

As the Board’s silent, unified stance on the Sullivan affair unraveled, some currently in power indicated they were open to change. Hunter Craig, who originally met with the rector and vice rector to accept Sullivan’s resignation before becoming a vocal supporter of her reinstatement, said he’d even give up his seat on the Board to make way for a faculty representative. It’s an idea many professors have echoed as a necessity in the future.
But John Thelin, a professor of higher education and public policy at the University of Kentucky, former chancellor professor at William & Mary, and the author of A History of American Education, said while many public universities have incorporated faculty representation into their governing boards, an appointment or two wouldn’t solve every problem.

“On the one hand, it’s a big gain, and it provides some continuity and formality, and it’s not going to be evaporated,” Thelin said. “It’s going to persist. But in some ways, those faculty members face a very hard situation. They can be coopted.”

Cohen agreed. The discussion now is about more than a representative on the Board, he said.

“We should take this opportunity to think as deeply and creatively as possible on the question of how the Board should be made up, how the Board should interact with the different constituencies of the University,” said Cohen.

It’s not something faculty can do alone, he said. Any change in Board rules, for instance, would require legislators to step in.

“So right now, we as the Faculty Senate are doing what we do best, which is try to figure out the pros and cons, do some research about what other places do, figure out what works and what doesn’t, try to come up with some proposals, and see what happens,” he said. The process has already started. Cohen said faculty members are signing up for workshops and scheduling symposia to talk governance in the coming months.

They could have an important leveraging tool at their disposal, Thelin said. Before Sullivan’s reinstatement, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools put the UVA Board on notice, saying it had questions about UVA’s ongoing compliance with accreditation rules and calling into question the integrity of the Board. That should make UVA leaders nervous, Thelin said. The SACS is responsible for accrediting the University, and running afoul of its rules could have a serious negative impact on funding eligibility—not to mention the school’s reputation.

“Anything that would jeopardize the regional accreditation of the University is very high stakes,” Thelin said, and that might make Board members and state legislators more willing to entertain reforms.

Miracle on Grounds
Whatever the long-term effects on governance, Thelin said the turmoil at UVA was extraordinary. A president getting fired is nothing new, he said. Neither is faculty unrest. But a University community rallying around an ousted leader until there’s a reinstatement?
“As far as I know, it’s unprecedented,” he said.

Cohen seemed as surprised as anyone that he and the faculty he represents fought as hard as they did—and prevailed. But their message has remained the same throughout the last three weeks, he said, and it will guide them going forward.

“What we have been saying all along is that we understand change has to come, but let us be a part of the process,” he said. “Let us contribute. Let’s have the debate.”

The ever-quotable Thomas Jefferson had plenty to say during his lifetime about governance, transparency, and the future of the university he founded. No surprise, then, that his name and words have been invoked a number of times over the last three weeks by people on both sides of the debate on Grounds over Sullivan’s resignation. So who said what?

1. “The great object of our aim from the beginning has been to make this Establishment the most eminent in the United States.”

2. “…as new discoveries are made, new truth discovered and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times.”

3. “For here we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.”

4. “This institution of my native state, the hobby of my old age, will be based on the illimitable freedom of the human mind, to explore and expose every subject susceptible of its contemplation.”

5. “…Though you cannot see, when you take one step, what will be the next, yet follow truth, justice, and plain dealing, and never fear their leading you out of the labyrinth, in the easiest manner possible. . . An honest heart being the first blessing, a knowing head is the second.”

6. “It is pleasant for those who have just escaped threatened shipwreck, to hail one another when landed in unexpected safety.”

A. UVA faculty who are also alumni, in a letter to Governor Bob McDonnell on Thursday, June 21.

B. Faculty Senate Chair George Cohen, in a statement delivered before the emergency meeting of the Board on Tuesday, June 26.

C. Governor Bob McDonnell, in a letter to the Board of Visitors, Friday, June 22.

D. Rector Helen Dragas, in the initial press release announcing Sullivan’s resignation sent out Sunday, June 10.

E. President Teresa Sullivan, in a statement to the Board of Visitors at the start of its marathon closed session June 18.

F. President Sullivan, in her statement on the Rotunda steps on Tuesday, June 26.

Answers: 1. (D); 2. (E); 3. (A); 4. (C); 5. (B); 6. (F)

Two weeks after UVA students and faculty followed Rector Helen Dragas to her car after a marathon closed-door Board of Visitors meeting yelling “Resign!,” Governor Bob McDonnell announced that the much-criticized Board leader would keep her seat. And despite the anger directed at her for her role in orchestrating the ultimately unsuccessful ouster of President Teresa Sullivan, the message coming from University community leaders is one of reconciliation.

“I have been heartened by the recent statement made by President Sullivan, the Board of Visitors, and by the Faculty Senate chair about their ability to work with the rector,” McDonnell said in a Friday press release explaining his decision to reappoint Dragas.The governor’s other appointments were noteworthy, too. Four new names join the Board as voting members: Frank Atkinson, a Richmond lobbyist and McGuire Woods chairman; Victoria Harker, a Gannett executive and chair of the Alumni Association; Bobbie Kilberg, a tech CEO and big-time Republican donor; and Linwood Rose, the outgoing president of James Madison University. Dr. Edward Miller, who has been serving as an ex-officio Board member, was given an official voting seat.

Robert D. Hardie—one of the three Board members who called for the emergency meeting to vote on Sullivan’s reinstatement—was up for reappointment, but didn’t keep his seat. Heywood Fralin and Glynn Key weren’t eligible for reappointment.

McDonnell also created two non-voting advisory positions on the Board, appointing Leonard Sandridge, UVA’s former executive vice president and chief operating officer, and William Goodwin, a former Board member and a former chair of the Darden School Board of Trustees.

Conspicuously absent from the new spate of appointments was the faculty representative many at the University had called for—a change that faculty have said could take time to institute.

While many raged on Facebook, Twitter, and news story comments over the governor’s apparent unwillingness to acknowledge the fury and will of the University community, the official line from UVA has been calm acceptance of the new appointments.

Despite having repeatedly called for Dragas’ resignation, the Faculty Senate signalled support, with chairman George Cohen commending McDonnell for his “careful, thoughtful consideration of these appointments and for his eloquent statement explaining his decision.”
Spanish professor and UVA alumnus Ricardo Padron was one of a number of people who said he felt the outcome of the Sullivan saga was a mark in the rector’s favor. “I think Helen Dragas is to be commended for finding a dignified and honorable solution to the crisis,” he said. “The entire University is indebted to the Board for being able to come to a solution that has brought the University together like never before.”

Even Sullivan spoke up, saying McDonnell “used great wisdom” in appointing the new members.

And in her statement on her reappointment Friday, Dragas took pains to stress the importance of including the entire UVA community in pushing the University toward success.

“Each of us on the Board looks forward to working in a constructive and inclusive way with President Sullivan, along with students, faculty, alumni, and staff on tackling the broad challenges that face the University,” she said. Laura Ingles and Graelyn Brashear both contributed to this story. 

In a unanimous vote Tuesday afternoon, UVA’s Board of Visitors reinstated Teresa Sullivan as president of the University.

The vote came more than two weeks after the surprise announcement of Sullivan’s resignation June 10, and just over a week after a divided Board voted to appoint an interim president, who then stepped aside as anger mounted on Grounds over the secret ouster.

But the spirit was one of unity as Helen Dragas, the embattled Rector who orchestrated the forced resignation, entered the meeting alongside Sullivan and took a seat next to Heywood Fralin, the only Board member who voted against installing an interim leader last week.

Fralin introduced the Board’s resolution reinstating Sullivan, and before the room voted, Dragas urged unity—and indicated she’d changed her mind.

She said she’d spoken with Sullivan before the meeting, and the two agreed that “it’s time to bring the UVA family back together.”

Each Board member then voted in favor, many adding brief statements. “With high honor and great pleasure, yes,” said Hunter Craig, one of the three members who requested the emergency meeting to reinstate the president.

As cheers rose from the Twitter-following crowd assembled outside, Sullivan herself addressed the Board.

“I do not ask that we sweep any differences under the rug,” she said. “All of us want only one thing: what’s best for the University.”

The cheers grew louder when she emerged with the Board, and after an introduction from Fralin, addressed the crowd as president once again.

“My family and I could not have imagined the events of recent weeks when we moved here 22 months ago,” she said. “I am not good enough, I am not wise enough, and I am not strong enough to do everything that needs doing at UVA on my own. But you have shown me beyond a shadow of a doubt that I am not alone.”

“I think everybody recognizes that the process was deeply flawed, and I don’t condone it,” newly appointed interim President Carl Zeithaml said of his predecessor’s ouster at yesterday’s press conference on Grounds.

Today, the buzz is that several members of the Board of Visitors still want to see Sullivan reinstated—and that Sullivan herself told the Washington Post that she’d return to the University if Dragas resigned.

It’s not clear who on the Board is behind Sullivan at this point—the Post story names no names—but Faculty Senate leaders say they’re committed to keeping pressure on the Board.

Zeithaml met with faculty and media to answer questions regarding his new temporary position in the University’s latest push to calm the angry uproar over the sudden resignation of President Teresa Sullivan.

He said taking on presidential duties at the University is one of the most daunting things he’ll ever do, but he appreciates the “tremendous support” he has received from students, faculty, friends, and family, despite a handful of critical messages.

“I realize that some of you don’t trust me,” he said bluntly, “and there probably are divisions among the faculty and staff as far as what is the best way to proceed.”

Building that trust back, he said, is one of his top priorities as President. He called the loss of trust on Grounds “devastating,” and said he wants the university community to unite themselves in a common purpose in order to move forward.

He openly admitted he does not agree with the way in which the Board handled Sullivan’s departure, and he believes that Vice Rector Mark Kington’s resignation earlier this week was the right decision. He declined comment when a reporter asked if Rector Helen Dragas should also step down.

“I think that’s up to the rector to decide,” he said. “I’m happy I’m not in her shoes.”

When asked how he would repair relationship with donors, Zeithaml did not seem concerned.

“The majority are saying it’s not a time to walk away,” he said. One donor spoke of the issues that clearly need to be dealt with, he said, but overall he feels that donors can, and will, express their unhappiness in ways other than withholding donations.

After Zeithaml fielded questions, reporters directed attention to the back of the room where Provost John Simon was sitting.

“I didn’t vow to resign,” Simon said in response to a question regarding his speech at the Faculty Senate meeting last Sunday. “I plan to work with Carl in moving forward while he is in this role.”

—Laura Ingles