CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – Despite opposition from University of Virginia faculty, staff and students, as well as Governor-elect Abigail Spanberger, the school’s Board of Visitors’ Special Committee for the Selection of the 10th President will continue to interview candidates for the position over the next 15 days.

A brief meeting Thursday at Madison Hall, Rector Rachel Sheridan disclosed the committee, “will have closed meetings in undisclosed locations in the next 15 days to conduct interviews with candidates”.

The opening of the meeting in open session lasted a little over a minute, and Sheridan thanked the committee members and the few from the public who showed up for being there.

This is the first of three meetings scheduled with open sessions set since Spanberger’s letter urging pausing the selection process until after her inauguration, and the seating of five members in currently vacant Board of Visitors’ seats.

The University announced the meetings  on Dec. 19 and Jan. 6. All the meetings are for the expressed purpose “to discuss candidates for the position of president”.

Members of the UVA United Campus Workers of Virginia showed up for Thursday’s meeting, as they have the previous meetings, but this time with MC Forrelle and Adam Slez distributing a flier to a few of the committee members on the way out.

“The flier was just some printed material reminding the presidential search committee of all the organizations in UVA and in Charlottesville that have announced or published statements asking them to halt or pause the search and not push it forward through until Spanberger has been inaugurated,” Forelle said.

United Campus Workers has previously called for the search process pause and resignation of Rector Rachel Sheridan and Vice Rector Porter Wilkinson, who are chair and vice-chair of the search committee, as has the UVA Faculty Senate.

Prior to the meeting, an alumni group calling themselves Wahoos4UVA published an op-ed in The Cavalier Daily going even further.

“The entire Board — not just its leadership — is responsible for what is, at best, utter negligence and dereliction of duty at the University — and what is, at worst, serious malfeasance. They, too, should be held accountable for their acts and omissions.”

Forelle said for the Campus Workers, “We have called for the resignation of the entire presidential search committee, asking them to recognize the principle of the search is illegitimate from the get-go.”

“You know there’s a very consistent message out there in terms of what groups have been saying. and I’d say this also includes I want to note the Faculty Senate in the sense of many groups they might not acknowledge, but Faculty Senate is unambiguously sort of the institution for faculty governance,” Slez said.

“So, it’s hard to treat this as sort of shared governance when you explicitly refuse to acknowledge statements by the Faculty Senate, including public statements suggesting that statements of discontent or dissent are divisive.”

Forelle added, “And this is also in line with what students have called for many times, with Student Council calling for more transparency, more responsibility from this group and from the Board of Visitors, and we support them in that message as well.”

Thursday’s meeting is the first that was held on Grounds, with prior meetings at the Boar’s Head.

As opposed to Boar’s Head ballrooms that had ample space for public attendees, the President’s Conference Room at Madison Hall was a small room with fewer chairs available for the public.

Gatekeepers were at the door restricting access from inside Madison Hall until committee members and others on a submitted list were admitted inside, then media, then members of the public as allowed for limited seating.

Fewer members of the public attended this meeting than past meetings.

The next two meetings scheduled with public sessions are in Conference Room 119 at 2420 Ivy Road, which is the University of Virginia Human Resources Building.