In January, when Dr. Teresa Sullivan became the first woman selected to become president of the University of Virginia, expectations were that the noted sociology professor, provost and executive vice president for student affairs of the University of Michigan would ease into her job in bucolic Charlottesville.
When she took over in August, however, the scene was anything but peaceful.
The school, built on the high-minded values of Thomas Jefferson, was in the midst of one crisis after the other. The beating death of Yeardley Love, a senior and a member of the university’s highly ranked women’s lacrosse team, made national headlines, particularly because her boyfriend George Huguely, a player on the men’s lacrosse team, is facing trial for her death. In a major test of academic freedom, the school was being dragged into court by the state’s attorney general as part of a fraud probe into a former university climatologist’s research into climate change. And like schools everywhere, UVa was struggling from big state budget cuts prompted by the worst economic downturn in 70 years.
If these weren’t enough, Sullivan has the charge of enhancing Virginia’s top-flight academic rating and ensuring it remains a diversity leader in recruiting students and faculty. Both are legacies of her predecessor, Dr. John T. Casteen III, who helmed the university for 20 years.
Having been brought up in Little Rock, Ark., and in Mississippi, Sullivan is familiar with the racial challenges Southern schools face. Before becoming Michigan’s provost, she spent 27 years at the University of Texas at Austin as a professor and administrator.
Here, Sullivan explains why the school instituted criminal background checks of students and shares her priorities as president:
DI: What are the biggest issues you are confronting at the university? What are your goals as president?
