Gov. Bob McDonnell continues cronyism with business selections to public university boards

What could be a silent coup of sorts, and an incredibly hushed over addendum to Gov. Bob McDonnell’s intimate ties with business leaders in the state, Virginia’s governor appointed several business leaders from Northern Virginia (NOVA) to public university school boards from which some of them did not graduate.

Here’s a quick rundown of some of the NOVA business leaders that were named to various public university boards in the commonwealth. CEO of Lead LLC, Byron Cherry, was appointed to the Norfolk State University board. Loudoun County’s commissioner of revenue, Robert S. Wertz Jr., will be joined by Thompson Reuters Corp. program manager, Stephen L. Mobley, on Longwood University’s school board. Microsoft Corp.’s Washington, D.C.-based vice president of U.S. government affairs, Frederick S. Humpries Jr., will join the board of Virginia State University.

In the minds of conservatives like Bob McDonnell, public-funded institutions like public universities need a good shot of the private-sector ‘innovative spirit’ and cost-benefit analyses which place profit-making goals and objectives above all other considerations. What better way to infuse public universities with these guiding philosophies than placing successful private-sector leaders on their boards?

The attempt to turn public universities into self-sustaining, profit-generating, institutions is not a wholly undesirable objective, but it’s also not without its pitfalls. While public institutions have become more aware of, and sensitive to, the need to turn as many academic programs as possible into revenue-generators, some academic programs like English, History, and other Humanities and Liberal Arts disciplines are at an inherent disadvantage in a period in history when engineering and technological breakthroughs are largely valued higher than knowledge of The Canterbury Tales. Would you rather pay a million dollars for scholarly research into the cultural context surrounding The Canterbury Tales or a new, and potentially paradigm-shifting, engineering wing at your preferred university?

As someone who has straddled the ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ sciences, I tend to sympathize with both sides of this argument. Ultimately, however, the need to preserve and protect the Humanities and Liberal Arts is more important than hindering them with the constant need to turn a profit.