Featheridge reversal: Dragas backs out of Kluge mansion buy

It appears that this dragon lady is missing quite a few brain cells. It does not look good that UVA awarded her TWO degrees. If this is what UVA now produces, then I don't want my grandchildren to go there eventhough my degree has that famous Colgate Darden, Jr. signature. What a shame that UVA has to suffer because she is too stupid to resign.

Before McDonnell reappointed her she had two responses prepared by Hill and Knowlton - one if she stayed and one if she left. Maybe now she can dust off the second and exit stage left, before she is kicked out.

Just as Allen will always be remembered for his
" macaca moment "

McDonnell's DragasAffair will be his legacy.

Any one remember the Vagina Monologues ? I'm waiting for the Dragas Monologues to open in a theater near you - any takers ?
Just think - it could be the history of the rise and fall of " strategic dynamism " at a top ranked university.

Remind me never to share confidential information with Roger Voisinet.

Been here 40 years and I don't ever remember someone who is so universally disliked as Helen Dragas. With that kind of reputation she was smart not to buy property.

City Resident--she's been made a caricature by people who don't know her, by the media, and by peoplewho don't fully understand how the University has worked. Irony is that people who know her thinls she walks on water. When she leaves BOV she'll be free of contractual constraints; I'm hoping she'll write a book. That will "rehabilitate" her reputation, though there would b a lot of bodies under the bus.

I hope she does write a book and send many people under the bus! As far as all you "KNOW IT ALLS", maybe Ms Dragas will write a juicy chapter on each and every one of you! Boy I would love to read about that! Accept, your lives are probably so boring since all you have time for is to critize others.. Especially you Percy Perfect!
Amazes me that you all think you know everything about everyone! Were you people under the board room table in the Rotunda"? Just relieved I am not your neighbor, you people would be nightmares to live next door too! Ugh!

Eurohoo, it's not your fault that you have this impression, given the vacuum of truth as reported throughout these events, but even reporters have yet to quantify any damage or destruction. Those are dangerous words repeatedly use by a few drama-fuelers. Step back, or step in and you'll find a school forging ahead in fine form. Rumors of its death are grossly exaggerated. In time you'll see that I'm right.

If only you were right, Hoo Cares. I am surrounded in Europe by educated people, business leaders and thoughtful, knowledgeable would-be supporters of the University of Virginia. Every one of them is bafled by Ms. Dragas's refusal to leave. That is simply not done in circumstances like these -- of her creation -- which include her causing the University's very accreditation to be called into question. If that, alone, is not prima facie damage -- what in the world do you think is?

well, Really, you "really" know what you are talking about. I am an American, living and working both in the U.S. and Europe I also have one of my degrees from UVa, of which I am most proud.. And, in fact, postsecondary education is one of the few, remaining top-tier products that the rest of the world still wants to buy from us. .Except for the kind of damage that Ms. Dragas insists on doing to the hUniversity, it garners great respect. I have both European and American employees. Tey are equally competent, hard-working, dedicated to good and moral values. Your strange attack is quite instructive as to why you support Ms. Dragas. You sem comfortable in continuing to turn everything American into second, or third-rate. I am not -- especially not the University of Virginia..

Leaving, as Mr. Kingston -- a true business pro -- shows, was the right and honorable thing to do. This is a classic example of what Napoleon meant when he said "If youre going to take Vienna -- Take Vienna!", Having failed to do so, it is well past time for Ms. Dragas to go. Just because her staying is not as "easy" as her doing the right thing would have been,, does not make it better. Her out of control and dysfunctinal ego seem, however, to make her staying "easier" than it would be for someone who had the best interests of the University in mind. Her staying is, in and of itself -- regardless of how "easy" or "difficult" destructive and wrong.

I am not in a position to determine whether Dr. Sullivan is great, average, or sub-standard. She seems to be doing all the right things, but, like anyone in such a position, needs time to sort all that out. I do, however, see the public record of Ms. Dragas. I also have decades' of experience with corporate governance, and can pretty generally tell from performance (as I have seen from Ms. Dragas) when there's an ego issue. I also know that her continued staying -- even if you are, as is highly unlikely, right about any of this -- cannot in any circumstance, advance the best interests of the institution she purports to serve.That is why she has to step away.

?

legal defense fees.

@Eurohoo - Dragas' resignation is necessary. She should have done an outcome study before canning President Sullivan.

Hanging onto her Rector position discredits the entire BoV, and does nothing for UVA.

Watching Rector Dragas run the BoV is like watching last weeks Packer's/Seahawk's game, with replacement refs. Cringe!

"The National Football League suffered major brand damage after a replacement referee made a bad call which resulted in the infamous Green Bay Packers loss to the Seattle Seahawks this past week. As a Packers fan, this author would say it was probably the worst referee call in the history of the sports universe."

US News & World Report
9/29/2012

The saddest person this week is the realtor who lost that commission. As for Dragas playing Empress perched at Featheridge...the bigger they are, the harder they fall.

It was a private deal through Dragas' friend at Remax.

Nancy Drew,

I generally appaud what you say, and am usually on board with the substance of your message. However, I'm afraid I cannot subscribe to your creeping notion that Dragas and her ilk are harmful to the University because they possess wealth. I know many, many people of means who are competent, thoughtful, compassionate, smart, genuinely philanthropic and good. Many of them -- thank Goodness -- are true friends of UVa. I, myself, try my best to be all those things. Dragas and her cronies are harmful, not because they have money. They are harmful because they are driven by motives that are simply not consistent with the best interests of the University -- or because they are simply incompetent and confused, and should never be put in positions of public trust and authority. They are best suited for running their family-owned businesses, and they know that, despite their corrupt drive for more. This is why they employ (either through payment or intimidation) people like Jullie Beck and Hoo Cares (more likely than not, the same person, but in any event, quite enthusiastic about the mission, casting this incompetent, greedy and destructive woman as someone who "walks on water" -- I really love that one), to try to create the illusion that their principals have legitimate support. Of course, it is quite easy to see that these hired commentators have no substance, no serious argument and no compassion for goodness or competence. They are easily distinguished from angry lightweights like "Really?", who are simply clueless and confused in their own right, and they are much more insidious. In any case, the University needs good friends of means to survive -- especially as state support has all but disappeared -- but, not to the exclusion of this governor leveraging the state's influence for his own political gain with the group of supporters he seems to favor. All that said, and getting back to the story at hand, although the owners of Featheridge may be unhappy about Dragas's (consistent) refusal to honor her purchase obligation, for my money, the luckiest people in the story are the neighbors who have been spared this woman's walks on the waters of their pools, ponds and lakes.

@Eurohoo, point well taken. I do believe though that economic diversity on the Board is needed and is presently absent. That alone would probably have prevented the attempt to oust Sullivan and all the wasted energy, money and time of students, alumni, legislators and UVa faculty and staff.

If you look at the members on the board when Sullivan was ousted they now claim they knew what was coming down and did nothing to stop it - I may be wrong but I doubt if she could have pulled this off with a more diverse board .

@Nancy Drew - agreed. It's a completely dysfunctional board that will not openly discuss issues that affect the entire UVA community.

This is the worst case at the worst time. The real value at UVA is in the faculty, students who rely on the faculty, and the staff. This BoV is a disgrace.

Regarding our BoV dysfunctional board, I agree.. Hook should have screened your post. You must be from the PR firm H&K?

'moi' has moved on to the new identity:

'concerned'

software analysis does not lie.

i don't know, or care, who all those writers are. i only know that they are strikingly similar in their illiteracy, their being devoid of reason, their penchant for obfuscation and their distraction from the discussion. If they are not the same person, there are certainly a lot of deficient supporters of the equally dysfunctional ms. dragas. i cannot tell if "moi" is truly someone who suffered grevious harm and injustice, as she doesn't ever come out and state what her criticisms of the handling of her issues were. i hope for her sake she is the fraud she seems to be. if not, my heart goes out to her, as her obsession and distraction seem to be manifestations of a serious pain borne in injustice that has little to do with the current conversation. in any case, they either don't understand the governance issues that these articles address, or they really want to point everyone in a different direction. if that is their purpose, then, well done, ms. dragas and your minions. you have turned everyone away from the real issue at hand -- even on this blog. nevertheless, you are not an effective, competent or useful rector, and should withdraw or be removed as soon as practicable.

Thank you, Naïve,

I'm afraid that I don't know enough to determine whether, as it seems, major, structural revisions in the appointment process are compelled by current circumstances. What seems clear is that, for a variety of reasons, Ms, Dragas's refusal to withdraw, and this Governor's bizzare reappointment, coupled with his installing the new suppression thugs whose mission is not to work with the president, but rather to silence, threaten her and compromise her (as seen in their exppression of "concern" about the failure of research funding and their quick finger-pointing in that respect) demand, at a minimum, that Ms. Dragas needs to be sent packing, followed, perhaps by.an investigation of the Governor's actions to determine whether he has acted in a manner that is consistent with his applicable governing obligations without being unduly influenced by improper sources.

I care deeply about the UVA community, and its' future. Dragas should resign in order to at least stabilize this mess. Other BoV may have to resign for UVA sake, at least the Rector's resignation would send a sign to the committed faculty. You know the ones, Dragas. This does not require rocket science. Get on with it BoV. Redeem what is left of your ill-advised coup. No one trusts the BoV at UVA. UVA is better than this!

@BD - you must be the new PR to promote Dragas. How disgusting. Most learned people can see through the lines.

Watching from Pacific -- what is H&K? I am an individual expressing my personal opinion.
Thanks to you and CC for respecting freedom of thought and speech.

WFP - My father 's aircraft were shot down on two separate occasions in the Pacific in WWII and he did a lot of watching "on " the Pacific from his life raft. He didn't risk his life so you could insult folks for expressing opinions. I have absolutely no dog in the fight. The matter wasn't handled appropriately but then a lot of things that happen in life are not handled fairly or justly.

However, can I not have an opinion in the matter ....in the overall scheme of things, this incident resulted in positive outcomes. (I am not watching from a distance, I am up close and personal and I see it with my own eyes ).

ok. ok. but, now we know more than enough -- with no counter-arguments of any substance or reason -- to conclude without equivocation that the rector is the source, or an agent to the source, of all of the Universitys problems, and that her continued presence both compromises and paralyzes the University in all ways -- including by calling into question the otherwise unquestionable qualifications as an accredited institute of higher learning. She really has to be removed, as she seems incapable of understanding that the right, honorable, and only thing to do is to step down.

...today's battle is against DRAGAS. She is not a leader. The benefits UVA will reap in years to come will be do to Dr. Sullivan's abilities to keep the faculty & staff together during the worst period in UVA history.

Redoubtanator,

although i like you energy in this regard, i have no particular interest in breaking the errant and incompetent ms. dragas. she can keep all her wealth and private self-aggrandizement, But, forced obscurity and prying her hands off the University would be good.

Look back more deeply into Kulge's relationship with UVA and you'll see all the same forces at work in this most recent blow-up, folks. The problem isn't that money is "starting" to take over, but rather that people with money let their vanity and general lack of knowledge stop those with better knowledge from bringing useful truths to light. Kulge tried to own complementary medicine at UVA and the effort failed. Now it's Tudor Jones and the CSC.

Batten-Down- You had to learn the hard way unfortunately that the Hook is not a credible site where individuals carry on a normal conversation. It is a group of ultra liberals and faculty happy with the status quo who defend a president who was doing an adequate job in their view. They refuse to see where UVA could be taken to the next level by a new president with a forward vision. They accuse Dragas and the board of lying simply because they didn't take a public vote in order to save Sullivan the embarrassment of a public flogging. A critical error for the future of UVA. Now they are bent on punishing Dragas and the board at the expense of UVA. Did I mention that they refuse to believe that there is another side or opinion to this and that anyone who dares to write about it is probably working for a firm hired by the board to defend them?

Most are faculty, a certain prior rector with a chip on his shoulder (reference NY times article), or relatives of Sullivan. And this is the group who needs to "give it a rest". No one speaks on the other side unless provoked. And Eurohoo... If you are indeed in "Europe", you keep some awfully late hours. Maybe you should get a little sleep. That may help you think a little more clearly.

Several posters here treat The Hook as a personal blog, free seats from which they pontificate. This article was about a real estate transaction--that never happened. You should go get your own blogs, with your own pseudo identities. And be sure to hire Roger Voisinet as your RE agent; just ask Tussi Kluge and Donald Trump for references...oh wait, he isn't actually PARTY to any of these deals, he just gossips about them.

What is the referent of "he" in your last sentence? Trump or Voisinet? And for the record, I'm not pontificating (except possibly by implication); I'm asking for deeper reporting, such as The Hook's deeply considered article on the proposition that Dragas harassed Sullivan over her weight.