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Listening Session Summary: Faculty & Staff

Presidential Search Listening Session

Faculty and Staff — May 11, 2026
(AI-generated summary from event transcription)
 

Session-Level Summary

This constituency, in this session, most wants the committee to hear that the search process itself is being read as a test of whether Virginia Tech still operates by shared governance. Faculty and staff repeatedly reattendeeed to the same structural concern: roughly one faculty member on the committee versus approximately twelve on the Sands search, in a configuration that participants, including a past search-committee member, the AAUP chapter president, a Faculty Senate member, a department chair, a libraries faculty representative, and a center director, characterized as inadequate, while consistently affirming trust in the individual faculty representative who was appointed to the committee. Underneath this is substantive input the committee should not let the process discussion eclipse: a president who treats shared governance, the academic mission, the land-grant and outreach missions, the humanities and applied sciences alike, multi-campus engagement, graduate education, facilities investment, and a disrupted federal research environment as core. Two speakers explicitly warned that current search committee composition risks both deterring strong candidates and saddling the eventual hire with a faculty-trust deficit.

Cross-Category Observations

Shared governance appears as both a presidential quality sought and a frame participants applied to the search itself. The same governance principle participants want the next president to embody is the principle they tested the search committee against in real time.

The remarks of two attendees fall within multiple categories. The AAUP chapter president’s prepared statement falls under presidential qualities and preserve, drawing on the Faculty Senate’s unanimous statement and a recent direct conversation with President Sands. A Fisheries and Wildlife Sciences professor’s comments fall under presidential qualities, strategic priorities, and preserve, defending the liberal arts, the humanities and arts as integral alongside the applied sciences, and the land-grant mission, while rejecting AI-as-substitute and “students as customers” framings.

Two arguments about downstream consequences of current committee composition appear across process and challenges. One participant argued visible faculty underrepresentation may deter the strongest candidates (a recruitment-side concern). A center director argued the eventual president may inherit a faculty-trust deficit if perceived as a board selection made with minimal faculty input (a post-arrival concern). Both speakers framed their concerns as structural rather than personal.

The federal-policy environment appears under both strategic priorities (sustaining research) and challenges (navigating disruption), raised by a Faculty Senate member referencing the Senate’s unanimous statement.

Theme Detail

Themes are grouped by category. Within each category, themes raised by multiple attendees appear first; themes raised by a single attendee follow.

Presidential Qualities

  • Deep commitment to shared governance across all constituencies and campuses
    Participants want a president who treats shared governance not as procedural courtesy but as a defining operating commitment, engaging faculty, staff, students, administration, and the Board of Visitors as genuine partners. The expectation explicitly extends across VT’s geographically distributed footprint, Blacksburg, Roanoke, Richmond, Hampton Roads, the Innovation Campus, and other sites, rather than centering Blacksburg alone. Participants framed this as the precondition for the next president succeeding with faculty.
  • Understanding of and commitment to the academic mission and the faculty–student relationship
    Participants want a president who treats teaching, research, and the faculty–student relationship as the institution’s core, not as one priority among many. One speaker, a department chair, characterized the academic mission as the “heart and soul” of the university; another, a Fisheries and Wildlife Sciences professor drawing on a liberal-arts background and an applied-science career, argued that education is a labor of writing, reading, and being challenged, and that the humanities and arts are integral alongside the applied sciences. Implicit in both is a rejection of frameworks that treat education as a transaction or students as customers.
  • Visible commitment to investment in campus facilities and infrastructure
    A staff participant, the assistant director for dining, delivered a formal, prepared statement arguing that the search committee should evaluate candidates explicitly on their support for prioritizing well-maintained, functional, accessible, and attractive campus facilities, including modern technology, ADA-compliant design, transportation, and walkability. The argument links facilities directly to student and employee satisfaction and frames deferred maintenance as an erosion of morale, with visible improvements signaling institutional commitment.
  • Openness to a president of any gender
    A participant asked the search committee and broader community to actively hold open that the next president could be of any gender, and to resist language, such as “Renaissance man” or default masculine pronouns, that subtly narrows the imagined candidate. The comment referred to terminology used by the moderator earlier in the session.
  • Recognition that staff are central to daily university operations 
    A participant framed staff as “the backbone” of the university and the means by which it runs day to day, with the implication that the next president should explicitly value and engage staff. The comment was made in the context of asking whether staff have meaningful input to the search, but its substantive claim is about the kind of president sought.

Strategic Priorities

  • Centering the land-grant and outreach mission, including extension and the Commonwealth relationship
    Participants want the next president to treat the land-grant mission and outreach, including extension work, as central to VT’s identity rather than an auxiliary. One speaker, a long-time extension specialist, framed A/P faculty (many in extension) as a sometimes-under-engaged constituency whose work shapes VT’s distinctiveness within the land-grant system and flagged the relationship with Virginia State University as a relevant consideration. A second speaker reaffirmed the land-grant mission’s reach “to the Commonwealth and the world” in the course of a broader argument about institutional identity.
  • Preserving and growing a liberal-arts grounding; resisting commodification and “students as customers” framing
    A faculty member in Fisheries and Wildlife Sciences, identifying as an applied scientist who completed a liberal-arts bachelor’s degree, urged the search committee to look for a president who understands the value of a liberal-arts education. The speaker criticized a recent emphasis on commodification and narrow career training, rejected the framing of students as customers attracted by “a fancier football team,” and compared transactional education to a “mail-order diploma mill.” The speaker also cautioned against “glib statements about maximizing this and optimizing that” and against treating AI as a substitute for the labor of education, while noting machine learning has scientific uses.
  • Growing graduate education and sustaining multi-campus commitment, including the Innovation Campus
    A participant, identifying as an assistant dean at the graduate school, urged the next president to grow graduate education and to remain committed to VT’s education sites around the Commonwealth, not only Blacksburg, including the Innovation Campus in Alexandria (referenced via Academic Building One).
  • Investment in campus facilities and infrastructure as a strategic priority 
    The staff-prepared statement on facilities (also surfacing under presidential qualities as an evaluation criterion) constitutes a strategic-priority claim: that prioritizing investment in well-maintained, accessible, functional facilities is itself a strategic direction the next president should advance. The Rector’s response cited an existing 10-year plan, groundbreaking on four buildings, and planned renovation of named residence halls.
  • Sustaining the research mission amid a disrupted federal-policy environment
    A Faculty Senate member, referencing the Senate’s unanimous statement, framed the past 18 months as a period of significant disruption to research funding and priorities and argued that the next president must be capable of navigating this environment while sustaining VT’s research mission and student education. Treated here as a strategic priority and separately under challenges as the structural pressure to be navigated.

Challenges

  • Navigating a disrupted federal research-funding and policy environment
    A Faculty Senate member identified the federal-policy environment of the past 18 months, significant changes to research priorities and funding, as a structural challenge the next president will need to navigate while protecting research and education. The moderator’s response pivoted to a claim that VT did not lay off researchers because its research program was “built on rock” rather than on assumptions about high indirect-cost-recovery rates, crediting President Sands.
  • A potential faculty-trust deficit inherited from the search process itself
    A center director argued that if faculty perceive the new president as having been selected with minimal faculty input, “a Board of Visitors selection,” the new president will arrive in a structurally difficult position with faculty, needing to be near-perfect to win them over, with any early misstep attributed to the selection process rather than the individual. The speaker framed this as a downstream consequence of current committee composition rather than as a comment on any candidate.

What to Preserve

  • Shared governance and the institution as a place of ideas
    Participants framed VT’s tradition of robust shared governance, and the character of a university as a “cosmopolitan home for the creation, discussion, and dissemination of ideas, illuminated by perspectives from every corner of the world,” as core features to preserve. Praise for outgoing President Sands’ steadiness, compassion, strength, and “equipoise” appeared in the same prepared remarks, framed as the model of leadership disposition the institution should continue to seek.
  • The humanities and arts as integral, alongside the applied sciences
    A participant urged the institution to preserve and not further devalue the humanities and arts, framing them as integral to a strong education on equal footing with the applied sciences. The argument was paired with a defense of the liberal-arts grounding and a rejection of the commodification of education.

Process

  • Faculty representation on the search committee is structurally inadequate
    The single most-raised concern of the session. Participants noted that the current committee includes roughly one faculty member compared with approximately twelve faculty on the search committee for President Sands (out of roughly twenty to twenty-two members), and characterized this as a sharp and inadequately justified shift. Participants repeatedly affirmed personal confidence in the named faculty representative while arguing the structural arrangement leaves faculty perspectives underweighted in deliberations, particularly given VT’s breadth across disciplines. A center director’s closing critique articulated the asymmetry directly: every board member was invited to serve on the search committee and faculty as a whole were told they would have one representative.
  • Insufficient mechanisms for ongoing faculty (and staff) input beyond a single listening session
    Participants asked repeatedly what input mechanisms exist beyond the listening session and the position description, for example, small-group meetings, input on finalists, or sustained engagement through faculty governance structures. Several argued that a survey alone is “imagining in the wind” because it does not give faculty input into the narrowing of finalists; one participant proposed a compromise mechanism allowing limited communication between the faculty representative and Faculty Senate groups without breaching candidate confidentiality. A staff participant separately questioned whether staff have any input opportunity at all.
  • Direct contestation of the confidentiality framing 
    A participant identifying as a member of the previous search committee directly rejected the moderator’s framing that confidentiality concerns justify the current structure, stating they were aware of no confidentiality violations on prior, more faculty-heavy committees, and warning that the current framing risks creating credibility problems for the next president with faculty. 
  • Risks tied to the search firm and reference vetting
    Two related concerns about how the search will function operationally. One participant raised concerns about the search firm that has been engaged, specifically: that large search firms tend to recycle a known stable of candidates and impose heavy-handed timelines, and asked how much the process will be driven by the firm versus the committee. A second participant warned of the opposite failure mode: overly strict confidentiality can prevent adequate reference vetting, with the result that bad presidents and provosts get recycled across institutions; the speaker offered a specific anecdote about a previous institution unable to make payroll after an outgoing provost departed.
  • Search timeline expectations and transparency about progress
    Participants asked about the overall timeline, whether the current search appears compressed relative to the prior search (~6 months), and how and when the broader community will be told that the search is progressing toward selection. The concerns combine pace (“is speed being prioritized over thoroughness?”) with notification (“how far in advance of the board’s vote will we know progress has been made?”).
  • Search committee structure and voting clarity
    Procedural questions about how the committee is constituted: whether outgoing and incoming board members are both currently serving, who is voting versus non-voting (particularly across the June–July board transition), and how committee deliberations relate to the Board of Visitors’ final vote. The moderator clarified that everyone on the committee has a voice and vote in committee deliberations, with only the Board of Visitors voting on final selection.
  • Search outreach should be both national and international
    A participant requested that the position be advertised both nationally and internationally, given VT’s stated identity as a global university. The moderator affirmed the commitment and noted specific discussion with the search firm on international promotion had not yet occurred, asking Dr. Dye, the search committee chair, to take a note.
  • A survey or open forum as a mechanism for compiling community input
    A participant suggested a formal mechanism, a survey or open forum, to compile constituent input systematically and to allow the community to see what is being communicated to the board. The moderator and Dr. Dye indicated openness to a survey.
  • Units should elect their own representatives to the search committee
    The AAUP chapter president proposed that units within the university should be asked to elect their own representatives to the search committee, so that the committee’s composition itself reflects shared-governance principles rather than top-down appointment. 
  • Visible underrepresentation of faculty may deter the strongest candidates
    A participant offered an additional argument: regardless of one’s view on the appropriate number of faculty on the committee, the strongest candidates may themselves find a one-faculty-member committee strange and could be “spooked” by it. The committee should therefore reconsider composition for recruitment reasons, even setting aside representation arguments.
  • Did board members read and engage with the Faculty Senate’s statement?
    A Faculty Senate member directly asked whether all board members had read and absorbed the Senate’s unanimous statement, and how it was being received and incorporated into the search. The moderator responded that he had not heard negative feedback and believed it was well read and well received.