Wednesday, Nov. 19 to Friday, Nov. 21, the College of William and Mary’s Board of Visitors convened for its second meeting of the 2025-26 academic year in Blow Memorial Hall, approving two new bachelor’s degree programs in applied artificial intelligence and bioengineering, and raising in-state and out-of-state tuition at the William and Mary Law School by 2.5% and 5% respectively.
In addition to the Board’s eight standard committees meeting, each dean of the College’s six major schools — the College of Arts and Sciences, the Law School, the Batten School of Coastal and Marine Sciences, the School of Education, the School of Business and the School of Computing, Data Sciences and Physics — delivered presentations to the Board on their strengths and challenges while taking into account the rise of artificial intelligence. Board members then participated in a Q&A session with each dean for roughly 45 minutes.
The Board also established a peer group of comparable institutions to enable the College to track key performance indicators by comparing them to both in-state and out-of-state competitors. The committee on administration, buildings and grounds also passed resolutions approving land exchanges with the City of Williamsburg and greenlighting the demolition of old buildings at the Batten School.
Academic Affairs opening
Academic affairs chair Laura Rigas ’01 opened the special session featuring the College’s major deans, called the omnibus session, with a statement recognizing the Board’s willingness to take on a new format to familiarize themselves with the College.
“The idea was to sort of level up all of our knowledge as board members so that we could start with more of a strategic posture for this conversation today,” Rigas said.
Each school’s presentation focused on five key tenets of current and future operations: their mission statement, what success looks like, their criteria for success, the greatest opportunities and challenges they’re facing and special preparations in the age of AI. Rigas also explained that the order of presentations was determined based on the age of each school, walking board members through the histories of each major school.
Rigas also thanked Rector Charles E. Poston J.D. ’74, P ’02, ’06 for a letter he submitted to the Board in October formally calling for a revision of the College’s COLL curriculum and a strengthening of post-tenure faculty. She also celebrated an anonymous $1 million donation made in Poston’s name, who is retiring this year.
“I wanted to congratulate [Poston] on the incredible gift of $1 million, which was donated anonymously in his name to create an endowment for law school scholarships,” Rigas said.
Academic affairs vice chair AnnaMaria DeSalva ’90 contextualized the omnibus session, which she said fits into the College’s mission of working toward achieving national preeminence, under four central drivers of success: student value, academic excellence, reputation and career outcomes. DeSalva stressed the need to critically analyze the broader higher education context when planning for the College’s future.
“Really thinking about the strategic context: where are we in this moment and for the next five to ten years?” DeSalva said. “What battlefields are we in and how does that lead to our choices?”
Session 1: College of Arts & Sciences
Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences Suzanne Raitt opened with a brief history and mission statement of her school, which opened in 1693, the same year as the College. She then moved on to a current snapshot of the school, highlighting the U.S. News and World Report’s 2025 rankings for undergraduate teaching, released in September.
“The US News and World Report ranked William and Mary’s undergraduate education as number two among public universities,” Raitt said. “For many years, ever since I came here, we’ve been stuck at number six, which is a good place to be stuck at. But something happened last year, and we rose pretty significantly.”
Raitt cited the increasing number of peer-reviewed publications by faculty and students, reaching 999 in 2024, as evidence of Arts and Sciences’ forward strides. She also highlighted the College’s increase in credit-bearing applied learning experiences.
“We believe all of our students need to do something that gives them professional or hands-on skills,” Raitt said. “We want those experiences to be transcripted, so that when an employer looks at a transcript, they know the applicant has done this. We need to be able to support our students in having these experiences over the summer.”
In addition to the challenge of allocating sufficient resources to every student in need, Raitt touched on ways that she envisions Arts and Sciences incorporating AI into their curricula. She highlighted that AI makes new projects possible, like studying monarch butterfly population decline via genome data.
“AI is not about sitting in front of a computer,” Raitt said. “AI is about approaching a problem in a way that is effective, that allows you to solve the problem and be efficient.”
Vice Rector Ardine Williams asked Raitt whether she had considered shaping the COLL curriculum based on feedback from employers on the skills they desire most. Raitt agreed with the proposition, highlighting the need to prepare students for unknown workforce demands in an environment where employers are often equally uncertain.
Board member Robey W. Estes, Jr. ’74, P ’06 inquired about potential changes to the school’s budget and staffing in response to the incorporation of AI. Raitt stressed that while AI will allow the College to reduce the number of administrators to utilize resources better, humans will still be needed for high-level department management tasks.
Finally, Raitt announced the opening of a new living and learning community in fall 2026 called the Democracy Scholars, where students focused on civic engagement initiatives can live together and participate in structured activities while earning academic credit.
“That’s the kind of public service-oriented training we give our students so that they’re always thinking about the greater good and about the public good,” Raitt said.
Session 2: School of Law
Dean and Trustee Professor of the School of Law A. Benjamin Spencer presented next to the Board. He highlighted the school’s mission of producing “citizen lawyers” as the nation’s oldest law school, focusing on Bar Exam success and career placement.
Spencer touched on the fundamental importance of rankings in shaping the public’s perception of the law school and attracting future students. He stressed that metrics such as the Bar Exam pass rate, entry-level placement and student selectivity directly contribute to these outcomes and remain operational priorities.
“Optimizing our ranking and our national standing is critical to putting our law students in the best possible position to secure positive career placement outcomes,” Spencer said.
Spencer addressed that the College’s first-time Bar Exam pass rate decreased last year from 92.96% to 83.63%. He explained that the dip was due to an undisclosed topic appearing on the exam nationwide, similarly hurting other law schools’ outcomes.
“All schools in Virginia suffered in that year, but that pain was not shared equally across the country,” Spencer said. “I can elaborate further on that. We have taken measures to intervene with the first-time Bar pass rate. For the class of 2025, for which data was not available at the time this was prepared, that is now at 93.25%, so that has rebounded.”
Spencer cited the law school’s need to “significantly grow non-J.D. tuition revenue” long-term in order to alleviate the financial burden on J.D. tuition. He explained that J.D. revenue currently represents a large proportion of the law school’s total budget after the College lost a majority of its L.L.D. students. In response to that drop, Spencer led the creation of an online master of legal studies program, which has so far amassed 70 students and which he said has already begun to replace some of that lost revenue.
“We are a J.D. tuition-dependent institution,” Spencer said. “Our LLM revenue, which was fairly robust in the late 2010s, declined precipitously because it was over-dependent upon China and Saudi Arabia for students. Those two cohorts completely disappeared through COVID and the geopolitics of the past five years.”
Finally, Spencer addressed the rising demand for lawyers who are well-versed in AI, leading him to incorporate AI-related assignments into the law school curriculum.
“The bottom line here is that AI is certainly not going to replace lawyers, but lawyers who can use AI will replace those who don’t,” he said. “The other thing from a law school administrator perspective is that AI provides augmented productivity that enables one lawyer to do the work that was previously done by two, three or four.”
However, Spencer shared that the decreasing demand for legal services across the board has led him to shrink the number of J.D. students admitted to the law school. Notably, the law school class size has decreased to 183 in 2025 from 230 in 2020.
“You may hear in higher education, particularly on the undergraduate side, that the imperative is to grow enrollment,” Spencer said. “That is not an imperative in the law school context. We want modest enrollment that’s appropriately sized for the market that students are graduating into to make sure they have opportunities for success.”
Session 3: Batten School of Coastal and Marine Sciences
Dean of the Batten School of Coastal and Marine Sciences Derek Aday focused his presentation on positioning the College as a national leader in coastal resilience, becoming a “premier destination” for students and postgraduate researchers studying the existential challenges facing coastal communities and ocean systems.
Aday underscored the school’s heavy contribution to the College’s total research output, which he said propelled the College toward receiving an R1 designation in February.
“We function in this school like an R1 university and always have,” Aday said. “And it is good for us to be attached to an R1 university, [as] that brings additional recognition, visibility and opportunities for our faculty, our staff and our students.”
In addition to producing “top-tier, job-ready graduates” and investing more funds in undergraduate applied-learning experiences, Aday discussed the school’s growing role as an expert advisor on state and nationwide policy outcomes.
“We get a lot of testimonial requests in Richmond, and increasingly, we’re getting testimony requests in Washington D.C.,” Aday said. “It’s because we do that science translation that is so important to policy development.”
Amid the school’s success, Aday addressed the major challenge of maintaining its high research output in a federal funding climate that has already endured science-related drawbacks. Because the school normally relies on federal funding for 50% of its operating budget, Aday has already begun making financial adjustments.
“There’s this pragmatic piece, which is that we’ve seen about a 75% reduction in new federal funding this year, so that’s a big hit for our budget,” Aday said. “The other piece I really want to avoid here is a disruption in this momentum. This charge forward that we have — and this ambition to be nationally recognized and pre-eminent and to stay focused on that strategy — takes a lot of time down in the weeds now to keep programs going and to keep people employed.”
Aday shared that the Batten School’s use of AI is centered on enhancing scientific modelling efforts related to environmental forecasting. Along with other schools, Aday aims to encourage ethical AI use in classroom settings to boost learning outcomes.
“We’re launching this year a new Center of Excellence in Environmental Forecasting,” Aday said. “This is where to take the flood model, sea level rise, storm surge, water quality issues, fisheries issues, and we’re building what will be a nationally-recognized forecasting center with some of the best models out there. And we’re just now at the point that we’re building AI into them to enhance those models.”
Board member Stephen J. Huebner ’76, P ’09 asked whether Aday had considered corporate outreach efforts to establish new revenue-generating partnerships that could potentially replace lost revenue from the federal government. Aday said the school has already started collaborating with the private sector, but that such revenue would likely not be able to match the federal funds on which the Batten School relies.
Aday also expressed an interest in starting a “four-plus-one” accelerated graduate degree program at the school, allowing students to enter the workforce more quickly.
“Right now, a typical master’s degree in the natural sciences is about three years, so that puts you at seven years for a bachelor’s and a master’s,” Aday said. “If we could get that to five, that would be a real win and would feed into national pre-eminence.”
Session 4: School of Education
Dean Robert C. Knoeppel of the School of Education centered his presentation on maintaining the College’s status as a “center of educational change” in the Commonwealth of Virginia, while also boosting community impact.
He described the school as a “nationally-recognized program,” citing a letter from the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation received Tuesday, Nov. 20, which bestowed full accreditation in school psychology to the College.
Knoeppel also highlighted the school’s 100% placement rate of graduates directly into teaching positions in 2024, followed by a 97% placement rate in 2025. He also shared that research expenditures have doubled since 2020, from $6.9 million to $13.7 million.
Knoeppel said the statistics attest to the school’s contribution to the College’s R1 designation, underscoring that they are the largest producer of doctoral degrees.
“It was a remarkably successful year for us, and when we think about educator preparation, we know that our students are prepared and ready to go into the field.”
Knoeppel emphasized that the school must play a role in filling a rising demand for teachers across the state, equipping students with the skills to be effective educators.
“This is a really challenging time in education,” he said. “There’s a huge [educator] vacancy rate in the state. It’s gotten better in the last two years, but the average vacancy rate in Virginia was about 7.5% and it’s now just shy of 4%. But here on the peninsula, it’s over 11% in many of the school divisions. And I want to point out that ‘vacancy rate’ means that jobs are open.”
Rigas asked Knoeppel about the challenge of keeping graduates in the teaching profession long-term, citing the prevalence of burnout. Knoeppel said that the College can help address this systemic problem by reinforcing pre-service and in-service teacher capacities. He cited the College’s partnerships with Newport News Public Schools and D.C. Public Charter Schools as examples of ensuring young teachers receive the guidance and training needed to keep teacher retention rates high.
“The research on teacher retention says that teachers will stay in the hardest schools, the hardest-to-staff schools, if they believe in the leader and believe they are supported in their professional growth,” Knoeppel said. “And we see these partnerships as critical to do that and to help stabilize what’s happening out in the profession.”
Session 5: School of Business
Dean of the Raymond A. Mason School of Business Todd Mooradian centered his presentation on preparing “renaissance business leaders,” which he described as graduates with broad intellectual foundations, strong problem-solving skills and the ability to lead ethically in a changing global economy.
He pointed to a recent Bloomberg Business Week ranking that placed the College as first in the nation for undergraduate business teaching, which he described as evidence of the school’s commitment to both excellence and innovation.
Mooradian noted the school’s ongoing efforts to broaden academic offerings, including a new major focused on operations management. He reiterated that students must become “tech-savvy humanists” capable of using AI without losing sight of ethics.
“We talk a lot in our building about how AI is just part of the reality,” Mooradian said. “That is not to be dismissive of our fundamental challenge, which is to find a way forward so that we produce tech-savvy humanists that connect AI and every other tool we give them to the condition of mankind and to human problems in business.”
He described the current Business School environment as a “hyper-competitive, rapidly shifting landscape,” particularly in recruiting international graduate students. However, Mooradian framed that challenge as an opportunity to rethink programs, including adjusting MBA curricula, expanding accelerated degree pathways and strengthening ties to the College’s Washington D.C. Center.
In partnership with the Smithsonian, the Business School is launching a master of science in non-profit management that will be primarily based in Washington, D.C. and include internship placements for second-year students. Recruitment for the program begins this spring, with its launch scheduled for fall 2026.
Mooradian also discussed the school’s desire to deepen its engagement with local community organizations. Several board members expressed enthusiasm about the potential to deliver executive-education programs to local non-profit organizations, whose leaders struggle to navigate the complex landscape of non-profit management. Mooradian cited ongoing collaboration with the Williamsburg Institute as an example.
He commented on these community events being hosted within the College.
“When [local business leaders] get the oxygen to grow their professional awareness and be in organizations, the university is delivering exactly that, sometimes using our facilities.”
Session 6: School of Computing, Data Sciences & Physics
Dean of the School of Computing, Data Sciences and Physics Douglas C. Schmidt ’84, M.A. ’86 presented on his recently opened school’s direct responsibility in shaping the College’s role in the future of science, technology and artificial intelligence.
He emphasized that the school’s interdisciplinary structure is specifically designed to advance human-centered technology and what he calls “augmented intelligence.”
Schmidt outlined significant growth in the school’s academic programs and research output in recent years, citing rising numbers of students majoring in computing and data-driven disciplines, expanded participation in applied research and new student-led initiatives such as the College’s AI Club and annual Hackathon, which have attracted broader interest.
“What was most amazing to me was how many of the people who were in the AI club are double majors,” he said. “There were people who are history and data science, economics and computer science. The leaders of the AI club are finance and econ.”
He also outlined the proposal for a new bachelor of science in applied artificial intelligence. Douglas said the school’s central opportunity is to leverage the College’s liberal-arts foundation to produce AI-literate graduates. Schmidt proposed a three-tiered model of AI competency — literacy, fluency and mastery — which he adapted from Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and hopes to use as a guiding framework.
Regardless of a student’s major, Schmidt emphasized that his long-term goal is for students to achieve a baseline level of literacy. Fluency will be attained by students who pursue an AI minor or several related courses, and mastery will be possible for majors and graduate students with advanced knowledge in AI-specific fields.
Schmidt discussed the school’s work delivering public webinars, creating executive-education modules in partnership with the School of Business and preparing a new master’s degree in data science, now progressing through review by the State Council for Higher Education in Virginia.
He also highlighted industry collaborations, including partnerships with firms like Genworth and the alumni-founded company Dragonfly.
Schmidt said he hopes to develop an AI-ethics concentration jointly with the computer science and philosophy departments, signaling the school’s interdisciplinary potential.
He also previewed several applied initiatives under development, including AI-enabled mock interview tools that can analyze speech and facial expressions. He also shared the school’s early work on AI-supported repositories to help students document co-curricular experiences and later build competitive resumes with AI tools.
Administration, Buildings, & Grounds
Chief Business Officer Sean Hughes updated the Board on major operational and capital projects. He reported continued stabilization of the Workday finance system and announced that all students previously assigned to temporary housing have now been relocated to permanent accommodations in West Woods and Jamestown East.
The College also recently received the Edwin R. Golden Award for Auxiliary Services in dining, and Hughes praised the teams that helped sustain operations through the fall.
Hughes confirmed that ISC 4 has secured its certificate of occupancy and is expected to open in spring 2026. He also outlined ongoing priorities in accessibility, pedestrian safety and transportation across the campus, as well as classroom revitalization.
After providing an update on the President’s House, whose renovation will soon be underway in partnership with Glavé & Holmes Architecture, the committee passed two resolutions approving a land exchange with the City of Williamsburg and approving the demolition of older structures at the Batten School of Coastal and Marine Sciences.
Full Board
President Katherine A. Rowe opened the full board meeting with remarks about the fall semester at the College. She acknowledged the wide press attention received by the AidData team, a group of 126 undergraduate and graduate research students, with faculty leadership. AidData is a research lab that creates datasets to help policymakers best address the concerns of their constituents.
AidData’s recent release garnered national and international news coverage from organizations such as The Associated Press, The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN Digital, The Economist and many more.
“That coverage underscores the visibility, credibility, and trust that William & Mary commands in this powerful intersection of geopolitics, economics, and global security. It’s something we have been growing for more than two decades, that trust and that prowess,” Rowe said.
Rowe also announced the departure of Carrie Lynn Cooper, the College’s Dean of Libraries, who accepted a position as Dean of Libraries at Florida State University. Rowe acknowledged Cooper’s accomplishments at the College, followed by a round of applause in appreciation of her service to the College.
“She’s led William and Mary’s libraries so brilliantly for over fourteen years,” Rowe said. “Under Vision 2026, she has co-chaired our Democracy Initiative that’s evolving into a very robust vision of civic leadership at William and Mary. We will miss her greatly.”
Chair for the Committee on Academic Affairs, Laura Keehner Rigas ’01, then highlighted the unique structure of this month’s board meeting, which had a focus on reviewing each school at the College. She commended the board’s participation in this format, noting that they asked thoughtful questions that improved the process.
“Also, to the board members, you were all fantastic William and Mary students,” Rigas said. “You were prepared, you asked amazing questions, you just really helped evolve forward in a number of ways and helped illuminate some things that I think we want to take on.”
Rigas then introduced two resolutions to the Board and handed the floor to Provost Peggy Agouris to explain further. One resolution sought to create two new degrees at the College, a bachelor of Science and a bachelors of art in bioengineering. Agouris highlighted that bioengineering is not a new interest for the College – many student organizations and teams win national competitions in engineering, and with the new School for Data Science and Computing, it makes sense to create these new majors.
“And now, it is our time, under the auspices of the new school, to bring the pieces together and create this program that exists and really maintain the partnerships that are really built through a liberal arts and sciences education in engineering,” Agouris said.
The next sought to create a Bachelor of Arts degree in Applied AI. Agouris explained that this new degree fits perfectly within the constraints of the new school and will be able to be utilized by students as both a primary and secondary major.
“This is a field where we expect our students to use as a second major, for instance, or a primary major focusing on specific things applied in the field of artificial intelligence,” Agouris said.
The board approved both new degree programs unanimously.
The Committee on Financial Affairs proposed a resolution to adjust the tuition for graduate programs, like the law school, effectively increasing it.
Student representative and Student Assembly President Zoe Wang ’25 MPP ’26 spoke to the board against this resolution, highlighting a letter written by law students asking the board to vote no on this resolution.
“I just wanted to make sure that, as student representative, it’s my responsibility to elevate student concerns,” Wang said. “The law students have emailed you all a letter asking the board to vote no on the proposed law school tuition increases. I just want to encourage everyone to read the letter before voting on Resolution 8.”
The board did vote to approve the tuition increase, with Thomas K. Norment, Jr., J.D. ’73 voting against the resolution.
Rowe closed the full board session by introducing a resolution to reappoint Robert M. Gates ’65, L.H.D. ’98, for a third consecutive term as the Chancellor for the College. In her petition for his reappointment, Rowe emphasized Gates’s long history of political service to the United States.
“And whereas Dr. Gates has rendered distinguished service to his alma mater and his country across more than five decades of leadership, including service to eight presidents of the United States,” Rowe read from the resolution. “And whereas Dr. Gates is the only individual in American history to serve as Secretary of Defense and as other president of both major political parties, demonstrating the bipartisan trust and integrity that have distinguished his career.”
The board was unanimous in its decision to reappoint Gates to this position.
