GMU Board's Executive Committee Criticized For Meeting Sans Quota; Rector Defends Decision

By Nathaniel Cline, Virginia Mercury

Decemebr 8, 2025

As George Mason University Rector Charles Stimson addressed his colleagues Thursday, he sat across from faculty members, students and campus workers holding signs plastered with images of his face, gathered in opposition to his decision to hold a second executive committee meeting with only six voting members.

Tensions have boiled over within the Northern Virginia university’s community over Stimson’s decision to meet and vote on university matters without the required quorum. Outside of GMU’s meeting on Thursday, protestors yelled “no quorum, no business,” and organizers accused the board of meeting improperly.

One of the organizing groups, the Virginia Conference of the American Association of University Professors, said in a statement that Stimson is flouting rules to push his “ideological agenda,” and claimed the board is considering a settlement by the Department of Justice to drop the four investigations against the institution, similar to the University of Virginia.

University officials told the Mercury that it has no proposed settlement agreement.

Stimson, who stated that the board is simply “following the law,” mentioned in an interview after the meeting that in the absence of a quorum, legislative actions by state lawmakers have supported the executive committee’s role in meeting and addressing the institution’s business.

“Our bylaws incorporated (those legislative actions) decades ago … because you can’t run a university from a board perspective if you don’t have an executive committee or some component of the board, and so we’re just doing what the law authorized,” said Stimson.

Stimson pointed to several policies to support the executive committee’s meetings, including Virginia Code 23.1-1502, the university’s bylaws, and the 1919 statute enacted by the General Assembly that codified the executive committee’s authority, which he says has been rooted in the traditions of university governance.

The rector said the practice of allowing the university’s executive committee to conduct regular business in the absence of a quorum has been in place since the early 1800s. The only body that can repeal rules, Stimson said, is the General Assembly.

“No high-functioning organization defenestrates an executive committee from doing the regular business of a university, which is what we were doing,” Stimson said.

Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell, D-Fairfax, said he spoke with Stimson in October before the first executive committee, telling the Mercury that Senate Democrats disagree with the rector’s view and question if the decision runs afoul with the preliminary junction set in July to suspend governor appointments from serving on the governing board.

On Thursday, GMU’s executive committee approved several actions including the university’s six-year operating plan, which needed to be voted on by December to follow state statute. The committee opted to establish two new degree programs, an MS in quantum science and engineering and a PhD in cybersecurity, and to rename the College of Public Health’s Department of Health Administration to the Department of Health Administration, Policy, and Informatics.

Members also voted on the conferral of emeritus/emerita status, and the election of new tenured faculty. Meanwhile, the board is waiting for all 10 vacant seats to be filled through a court order or legislative action.

“We have to promote faculty members, we have to give people tenure,” Stimson said. “When we hire people, we hire them in their contract with the express understanding that they’ll get tenure, and the only people that can give them tenure is the board. … None of us on this board are going to refuse to conduct our fiduciary duties and honor our obligations to the university.”

The future

In Charlottesville, critics said the University of Virginia’s Board of Visitors has also recently convened short of the necessary number of representatives who are Virginia residents and alumni. Last Friday, campus workers and faculty members rallied in protest of the action as well as the institution continuing its search for the next president without a full board in place.

Gov.-elect Abigail Spanberger recently told the Richmond Times-Dispatch that on her first day, she would fill the vacancies on three university governing boards at George Mason, UVA and the Virginia Military Institute.

Simultaneously, eight gubernatorial appointments await a court’s decision on their future. The Senate Committee on Elections and Privileges rejected 22 appointees of Gov. Glenn Youngkin this year.

Since the Virginia Supreme Court refused to take up the case involving Youngkin’s appointees, a status hearing has been scheduled for Dec. 8 at 9 a.m. in the Fairfax County Circuit Court.

This story was originally published by the Virginia Mercury. For more stories from the Virginia Mercury, visit VirginiaMercury.com.