What Would Thomas Jefferson Think about UVA Today?

As July 4 came and went this year, I was thinking a lot about Thomas Jefferson — not just the Founding Father, but the founder of the University of Virginia. Recent news around the resignation of the university’s 9th president, Jim Ryan, had me wondering what Jefferson would think.

I’ve had the chance to visit UVA several times — for work, and as a mom when my daughter attended their summer writing program. Standing near the Rotunda, I remember feeling a sense of overwhelming awe. It’s almost impossible not to be struck by Jefferson’s ambition: to create a public university unlike any other in colonial America — a place that would not be governed by clergy or politicians, but by learned citizens, a place that would set a standard for public investment in the life of the mind.

Today, governors and legislatures are tweaking that purpose and the standards by which universities are judged — standards often tied to job placement or economic impact. Few stop to consider that Jefferson never saw higher education as a job training enterprise. He saw it as an insurance policy for democracy and the cultivation of citizens capable of critical thinking, public reasoning, and holding their government accountable.

If you are like me, you weren’t thinking about democracy enroute to your first college class. Like many, I just wanted to get a degree and then a job. I chose “business” as a proposed major because it sounded practical. I picked my liberal arts college more for its location and nice cozy New England vibe than for any understanding of the mandatory curriculum I was about to experience. And truthfully, I wasn’t thrilled about those required courses in philosophy, theology, foreign language, and biology — but I figured, OK, I’m here, let’s just get through this. 

Then came a moment of complete panic as I struggled in that first microeconomics class. Math and I don’t get along. I dreaded telling my dad, a math-savvy engineer, that maybe business wasn’t for me. Maybe college wasn’t either. It was a Rolaids moment. Thankfully that moment was interrupted by an English professor who pulled me aside after class one day. He said he liked my essays. He asked if I enjoyed writing them. I did. He thought I had some talent that could be nurtured. 

Talent or not, that faculty member threw me a lifeline that led to an English degree — and to a career built around words, storytelling, and creative endeavors, first in politics, then in higher education. I suffered through Victorian Literature and Linguistics, but I loved writing for seminars and creative workshops. And in retrospect, every one of those required courses made me better at what I do.

That, I think, is what Jefferson had in mind.

The liberal arts exposed me to ancient arguments, moral frameworks, and the best and worst of human history. I started to see myself not just as someone’s future employee, but as a vested stakeholder in this thing called the United States of America. 

That civic awareness is precisely why Jefferson’s founding vision feels more important — and more at risk — than ever.

I fear that elected officials and their appointed trustees now see universities as job-training centers and economic engines. That message is carried to the public, especially when a state appropriation is awarded for a facility that will fuel a favored sector. And it becomes the rationale to defund or eliminate some programs — some for being too woke, some for being underenrolled, some for their inability to create more nurses, engineers, or astronauts. But even astronauts and engineers wrestle with ethics, ideas, and their roles in a pluralistic democracy. And those engineers and scientists eventually turn to people like me to help make their case to investors, boards, and the public. 

UVA’s Jim Ryan is a celebrated constitutional scholar, someone who could hold his own with Jefferson. He resigned under pressure from conservative alumni and Trump administration officials. His failure? He didn’t dismantle DEI programs fast enough. He wasn’t “anti-woke” enough. By traditional measures — fundraising, research, public esteem — Ryan was highly successful. But like others recently forced out, he ran afoul of a new political orthodoxy.

What might Jefferson say? 

In 1820, he warned that “the atmosphere of our country is too full of the zeal of party to permit the faithful pursuit of truth.” That concern, two centuries later, feels eerily current.

Here in Florida, where I live, public university presidents have also been removed or forced to step down amid efforts to purge institutions of so-called “woke” ideas. But the unspoken goal seems more sinister — complete control over university governance. In contrast to Jefferson’s vision, we have allowed politicians to decide which academic programs deserve funding and which do not, rewarding institutions that follow ideological directives. 

Newly appointed leaders — often with little or no academic or administrative experience — are handed multimillion-dollar compensation packages, complete with cars, housing allowances, enhanced retirement plans, and generous performance bonuses tied to board-approved metrics. This new crop of presidents is incentivized to comply with political agendas: deny tenure, revise curricula without faculty input, and even eliminate programs altogether.

At the same time, some states are moving to replace traditional accreditation bodies with state-controlled entities, removing external checks on academic quality and governance. Just imagine if Boeing created its own version of the FAA, one the company controlled, to certify whether a plane is airworthy. Now imagine that logic applied to determining who is qualified to be a doctor, teacher, engineer, or attorney. That’s not hypothetical — it’s happening. 

The implications are staggering.

While elected officials worry non-stop about “woke agendas,” I wonder: would Jefferson see this as reform? Or might he wonder if it’s just political theater designed to redirect public resources to favored majors and other ideologies? 

Would Jefferson support today’s DEI programs? Probably not. But would he support firing presidents for ideological reasons, defunding entire academic disciplines, and dictating university policy from the Capitol? That seems equally unlikely.

When Jefferson founded UVA at age 76, he called it “the hobby of my old age.” He believed in it so deeply that he had it engraved on his tombstone — along with his authorship of the Declaration of Independence and the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom. Not the presidency. Not Monticello. Not his architectural feats. 

Education.

Even so, Jefferson, like America, was full of contradictions. He enslaved hundreds while preaching liberty. His ideal university was built for men like himself — wealthy, white, elite. But like the nation he helped found, his vision was imperfect, but progressive. His radical idea — that education should be public, secular, and civic in purpose — remains one of his most important legacies.

President Ryan reportedly resigned after threats that UVA would lose federal research dollars, student visas, and faculty jobs if he stayed. He did what others have done in similar situations. It’s become a pattern. 

In this season of fireworks and freedom, parades and pride, I just keep wondering: what would Jefferson really think?