​Trustee Paul Queally returning to campus to moderate business panel

Paul Queally, University of Richmond board of trustees member and Richmond College ’86, will return to campus Thursday to moderate a Robins School of Business executive panel, an event that has drawn both support and criticism from the campus community in light of Queally’s controversial comments published last spring.

The event is part of the Robins Executive Speaker Series. "The Word on Wall Street" will feature a panel of financial management experts discussing their experiences and answering questions from the audience.

Queally, whose jokes at a private Wall Street function, published in February, were deemed “sexist” and “homophobic” by author Kevin Roose in a New York Magazine article, remains a board member and frequent donor to the university and the Robins School of Business. Queally Hall, the extension to the Robins School completed in 2011, is named for him, as is Q-camp, an immersive, career-building conference for Robins students.

Despite Queally’s consistent support of the university’s development, some students said they felt that the comments he made did not reflect the values of the university, and were confused about his strong presence and influence on campus.

“He’s leading this discussion, essentially about professionalism in the workplace and on Wall Street, and how to act on Wall Street, when he just made comments that are incredibly inappropriate,” said Mel Shuaipi, Westhampton College ’15 and Robins student.

Yet some members of the university community maintain that despite Queally’s comments, his expertise is still valuable.

“Queally coming to campus I think is still a good thing,” said Tracy Jones, RC ’86 and Richmond local. “He has a very good business track record and a lot to share with the B-school students. My feeling is that while a change needs to be made at a trustee level, he should still be part of contributing to the university in a variety of ways.”

After New York Magazine published Queally’s comments, members of the university community expressed their reactions by writing opinion pieces, speaking out in class, commenting anonymously on the Richmond Confessions Facebook page and organizing an event for dialogue and healing attended by university President Ed Ayers and board of trustees members, among others. The Feb. 25 event, coordinated by the Office of Common Ground and Ted Lewis, campus director for LGBTQ life, brought together approximately 100 students, faculty and staff.

Queally’s comments came after his involvement in a controversial trustee decision to create a varsity men’s lacrosse team, which in part led to the removal of the university men’s varsity track and field and soccer teams in 2012.

“We feel that we were really stepped on,” said Andrew Valenski, RC ’15 and former member of the men’s varsity track and field team. “The students and the faculty really weren’t given any input in the matter, and they just said ‘this is the best for us because we say so.’”

This failure to listen to students’ voices and opinions is a trend, Shuaipi said, that continues with the response to Queally’s comments and his invitation to moderate Thursday’s event.

“The only response in terms of forming a community and actually getting people together to talk about it came from the Office of Common Ground,” Shuaipi said. “It didn’t come from the president saying something or someone at the business school. It didn’t come from leadership asking the community to respond … I think there was a lesson to be learned, and we really didn’t learn it.”

Other students said they felt that Queally’s contributions to the university outweighed his comments and shouldn’t block him from participating in university activities.

“I think that it’s kind of a difficult thing to say that someone shouldn’t be involved with the university or associated with it, especially after … contributing so much to the university,” said Conor Lemmon, RC ’16. “I think you’re getting into murky waters when you try to say that something someone said in private, when brought out into public, can be used against you.”

Still, Lemmon and Valenski agree that as a public figure representing the university, the community should expect better from Queally.

“I think it’s a completely different issue when you’re talking about influence within the university community, because then you really can put forward a polished image,” Lemmon said. “When you’re going to give someone a board position I think then you really have to look at their history and everything a little more closely -- be a little more objective.”

“It doesn’t matter who your audience was, or that you said this under the expectation of eliciting a certain response,” Valenski said. “Once this got out that you said this, it had a very negative effect. This really isn’t the kind of person you want having their name all over campus and their legacy literally carved into the buildings.”

"The Word on Wall Street" will be at 6 p.m. Thursday, Sep. 18 in the Ukrop Auditorium of the Business School. This is the fourth annual occurrence of the event.

Robins School of Business Dean Nancy A. Bagranoff declined to be interviewed in person about Thursday’s event.

Contact reporter Chase Brightwell at chase.brightwell@richmond.edu