Spanberger removes Virginia Tech’s rector from board

John Rocovich, a Roanoke-based lawyer, has been removed as rector of Virginia Tech, according to a letter from Gov. Abigail Spanberger.

She wrote in the May 27 letter that his conduct “violated the Code of Conduct for Commonwealth Appointees to Boards, Authorities, & Commissions, the Virginia Tech Board of Visitors‘ Code of Ethics, and the governing statutes requiring board members to act in accordance with the best interests of Virginia Tech.”

Rocovich, a partner at Moss & Rocovich, was not immediately available to comment Thursday.

Dominion Energy Virginia President Ed Baine, whose term on the Virginia Tech Board of Visitors was set to end June 30, has been appointed to complete Rocovich’s term, which ends June 30, 2027. Baine was previously the university’s rector. According to the governor’s office, the board members will elect a new rector.

Although Spanberger did not specify how Rocovich, who was appointed by former Gov. Glenn Youngkin, allegedly violated the codes and statutes listed, U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine, Virginia’s junior senator, voiced concern last month about the motivation behind Virginia Tech President Tim Sands’ departure.

“I think there is a desire by certain members on that board to force him out,” Kaine said during an April 10 news conference, “even though he doesn’t deserve to be treated like that, so that the board can pick a president before Gov. Spanberger is able to put this administration’s stamp on the Virginia Tech board. And so, I urge Gov. Spanberger to get to the bottom of this and to not allow yet again a Virginia public university to be politicized with political schemes used to oust qualified leadership.”

Governors are the only officials in Virginia allowed to remove members from the state’s public university boards, which have hiring and firing power over institutions’ presidents.

Sands, who took office in 2014, announced in April he planned to step down in coming months and intended to stay in office until a successor was in place.

Spanberger also announced that Sharon Brickhouse Martin, who was set to start a term on Virginia Tech’s board July 1, has been immediately appointed to fill Baine’s open term ending June 30, after which she will start her four-year term. Martin is vice president of health services integration at VHC Health and a member of the Virginia Tech Alumni Association Board.

“The governor has informed us of this action. We have no additional comment,” Virginia Tech spokesperson Mark Owczarski said in a statement Thursday.

On April 20, the governor announced her four appointees to the Virginia Tech Board of Visitors, including: Microsoft Senior Account Manager Christopher Ramos, Hanbury Architects Principal and CEO Emeritus Jane Cady Rathbone, Greycore Ventures founder and Managing Partner Mehul Sanghani and Martin.

Spanberger noted at the time in a statement that she had made her selections in advance of the July 1 start date of the new board terms because Rocovich had committed to place her nominees on the presidential search committee.

Wrangling over university boards

According to the governor’s office, Rocovich is the first board member Spanberger has removed, although just before taking office in January, she asked five University of Virginia board members appointed by the Republican Youngkin to resign. U.Va.’s then-rector and vice rector, Rachel Sheridan and Porter Wilkinson, were among the five who resigned the day before Spanberger’s inauguration.

In 2025, Youngkin removed one of his own appointees to U.Va.’s board, Atlanta businessman Bert Ellis, an outspoken conservative who was vocal about his opposition to diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives at the university, but also was at the heart of several public disputes among board members.

In Youngkin’s letter to Ellis, he wrote, “Your conduct on many occasions has violated the Commonwealth’s Code of Conduct for our Boards and Commissions and the Board of Visitors’ Statement of Visitor Responsibilities.”

Youngkin appointed former Virginia Attorney General Kenneth Cuccinelli, a Republican firebrand who served during President Donald Trump’s first term, to fill Ellis’ seat, which sparked further controversy among Virginia Senate Democrats.

The Democratic-controlled state Senate Privileges & Elections Committee in June 2025 declined to confirm Cuccinelli and seven other Youngkin university board appointees to U.Va., George Mason University and Virginia Military Institute. At the time, Democratic Sen. Adam Ebbin said that the nominees were “not good choices” and that he had observed “a disturbing pattern of conduct” on George Mason’s board, showing disrespect for President Gregory Washington in public comments.

In 2025, U.Va. President Jim Ryan stepped down while the university was under investigation by the Department of Justice for its DEI practices, and VMI’s board voted not to renew the contract of Superintendent Cedric Wins, the first Black person to lead the military academy. A VMI alumnus and retired major general hired in 2021 following a state investigation into allegations of racism at the institute, Wins came under fire from conservative alumni for the DEI programs he put in place.

Wins slammed the board’s decision as “a partisan choice that abandons the values of honor, integrity and excellence upon which VMI was built.”

Although Ryan’s resignation took place while the Trump administration took aim at multiple universities over their DEI policies and conduct related to pro-Palestine protests on campuses, the former U.Va. president alleged last November in a letter to the university’s faculty senate that he believed conservative board members had influenced the series of events leading up to his June 2025 resignation.

He wrote that some board members were “complicit” in the push for him to resign. Sheridan, Wilkinson and board member and major university donor Paul Manning dealt directly with the DOJ, while he was advised to not engage with federal investigators, Ryan wrote.

The Youngkin administration fought in court the Senate committee’s decision to reject 22 university board appointees but lost on appeal, giving Spanberger the right to fill the seats upon taking office. Spanberger, meanwhile, asked U.Va.’s presidential search committee to pause its efforts until she took office and could name new appointees to fill its empty seats. However, they moved forward and named Darden School of Business Dean Scott Beardsley as the next president in December 2025.

Ultimately, Spanberger filled 27 board seats at U.Va., George Mason and VMI upon taking office in January, and she has more seats to fill July 1.