Gov. Youngkin, Gov.-elect Spanberger spar over UVA President selection

RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) -- Governor-elect Abigail Spanberger wants the University of Virginia’s (UVA) Board of Visitors to hit the pause button on selecting a new president, and Governor Glenn Youngkin is not happy about it. 

In a letter to the Board of Visitors, Spanberger said the Board of Visitors should wait to select a new president until she is sworn in as Virginia’s 75th Governor in January. 

In the letter, Spanberger said, “Over the past six months, the actions of the Board of Visitors have severely undermined the public’s and the University community’s confidence in the Board’s ability to govern productively, transparently, and in the best interests of the University.

Spanberger added, “In the wake of the departure of President Jim Ryan as a result of federal overreach -- unchallenged by the Board -- the University now faces the serious task of selecting its tenth president.”

Spanberger said to improve the credibility and transparency of the search process, the board should wait to select a new president until she has the opportunity to appoint members to five open seats currently on the board. Those seats remained open after the Democratic-controlled General Assembly rejected appointments made by Youngkin earlier this year.

“Right now, there’s five vacancies on that board. There’s also gonna be four news vacancies effective July 1 of next year. There’s gonna be a completely different ideological majority on the Board of Visitors in about seven months,” Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell (D-Fairfax) told 8News in support of Spanberger. 

However, Youngkin sees things differently. 

“I'm shocked she sent that letter. And not only is it inappropriate for a governor-elect to try to intimidate and bully an agency, cause that's what our higher ed institutions are, agencies of the executive branch. But it's inappropriate for someone who is in the transition period to even play that role. And the transition period is a period of learning and establishing and building your team, not of trying to govern,” Governor Youngkin told 8News.

"There is one governor right now, and I happen to be that governor. And as I promised I would do, we're working hard to support the governor-elect’s transition, but she is transitioning to be governor and is not governor yet. I will be responding in a comprehensive way to that letter. It is rife with errors and misstatements, and a comprehensive lack of understanding, and therefore, I’ll repeat, I was shocked to see that she'd written," Youngkin added.

8News reached out to Governor-elect Spanberger’s team to get a response to Youngkin’s comments, and will update this story once we hear back. 

In a statement, a spokesperson for UVA said, “University leaders and the Board of Visitors are reviewing the letter and are ready to engage with the Governor-elect and to work alongside her and her team to advance the best interests of UVA and the Commonwealth.”