Big Donor Hits "reply all" Reveals Role in UVA President's Ouster

[Thailandnotes]

http://www.readthehook.com/104250/im...ple-presidency

snippet…

Kiernan, a venture capitalist savvy enough to have served in the 1990s as a partner at Goldman Sachs, clumsily broadcast his roadmap all the way to the president's desk by using his email's "reply-all" function. Rector Dragas, a real estate developer from a family with voluminous experience in building houses and shopping centers, reportedly circumvented open-government laws by communicating the attack on Sullivan one-by-one to other members of the Board of Visitors.

"In the 21st century," writes UVA-based media scholar Siva Vaidhyanathan in Slate following Sullivan's ouster, "robber barons try to usurp control of established public universities to impose their will via comical management jargon and massive application of ego and hubris."

[astonas]

Re: Big Donor Hits "reply all" Reveals Role in UVA President's Ouster

http://www.readthehook.com/104250/im...ple-presidency

snippet…

Kiernan, a venture capitalist savvy enough to have served in the 1990s as a partner at Goldman Sachs, clumsily broadcast his roadmap all the way to the president's desk by using his email's "reply-all" function. Rector Dragas, a real estate developer from a family with voluminous experience in building houses and shopping centers, reportedly circumvented open-government laws by communicating the attack on Sullivan one-by-one to other members of the Board of Visitors.

"In the 21st century," writes UVA-based media scholar Siva Vaidhyanathan in Slate following Sullivan's ouster, "robber barons try to usurp control of established public universities to impose their will via comical management jargon and massive application of ego and hubris."

I happen to have read the book that Sullivan co-wrote with Elizabeth Warren. There was plenty in there to make a FIRE industry beneficiary hopping mad. To claim that this move was based on fund-raising ability, and not personal animosity residual from challenging FIRE rings very hollow indeed.

[Thailandnotes]

Re: Big Donor Hits "reply all" Reveals Role in UVA President's Ouster

I happen to have read the book that Sullivan co-wrote with Elizabeth Warren. There was plenty in there to make a FIRE industry beneficiary hopping mad. To claim that this move was based on fund-raising ability, and not personal animosity residual from challenging FIRE rings very hollow indeed.

I don't know about hopping mad, but Sullivan and Warren did take on the credit industry's role in increasing bankruptcy. Both are still being smeared 20-some years later for "scientific misconduct" which they were clearly not guilty of.

The interesting reason to follow the story is to see how the press presents it. Already, when you google Sullivan, you get headlines like, "Was University President Paid Too Much?" Charlottesville is only a few hours drive from Washington. You'd think the Post could do better than this...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...g.html?hpid=z2

Every town need a www.readthehook.com

[Thailandnotes]

Re: Big Donor Hits "reply all" Reveals Role in UVA President's Ouster

The Post the Hook need to trade places...

On a Sunday at a hastily convened meeting, three members of the University of Virginia Board of Visitors' executive committee voted to accept the resignation of President Teresa Sullivan, and a firestorm ensued. Rector Helen Dragas led the ouster of Sullivan with her BOV cohorts, vice rector Mark J. Kington and Charlottesville developer Hunter Craig.

Mark Kington

The Tennessee native graduated from Darden in 1988, the same year as Dragas, and then became a cofounder of Columbia Capital with Mark Warner and Jim Murray. Warner went on to become governor and senator of Virginia, and he appointed Kington to the Board of Visitors in 2002. Kington contributed $131,000 to Warner's campaign for governor.

Kington was not reappointed to the BOV by Tim Kaine, but bounced back when Governor Bob McDonnell named him to the Board in 2010. Kington donated $82,632 to McDonnell's gubernatorial run, and $75,000 to McDonnell's Opportunity Virginia PAC.

Kington is the managing director of X-10 Management Corporation in Alexandria, and president of Kington Management Corporation.

Vice rector Kington sits on the board of directors of Dominion Resources, upon which sits two other Board of Visitors rectors past and present: Thomas Farrell and Helen Dragas.

Kington and his wife, Ann, donated $1.5 million for a professorship in the environmental sciences department in honor of his parents. That amount was matched by Sonia Klein Jones and hedge fund billionaire Paul Tudor Jones II, who most recently pledged $12 million for a yoga center at UVA.

Hunter Craig

Unlike other members of the Board of Visitors, Hampden-Sydney grad Hunter Craig did not attend the University of Virginia. He was appointed to the BOV in 2010 by Governor Bob McDonnell, to whom he contributed $33,301 to his campaign and $25,000 to McDonnell's Opportunity Virginia PAC.

Previously Craig served on the board of the University of Virginia Foundation from 1995-2003 and he's on the board of Jefferson Scholars Foundation.

In the past few years, developer Hunter Craig has turned up in the center of some the area's biggest stories, most notably the sale of Biscuit Run as a state park and the ensuing scandal of how a bloated appraisal during the popping of the real estate bubble would have salvaged the money-losing development with conservation tax credits.

Craig is now suing the state for using its own appraisal Biscuit Run, for which he's seeking nearly $20 million.

In May, Craig himself survived an ouster attempt from the board of Virginia National Bank, which he cofounded in 1998 with his father-in-law, concrete magnate Wick McNeely, and SNL founder Reid Nagle. Some members were concerned that Craig had pledged his shares of VNB stock to secure a loan with another bank.

http://www.readthehook.com/104276/co...gton-and-craig