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The Dean who went back to school
August 19, 2026
During the 2021 Christmas break, Dr Scott Beardsley, then Dean of the Darden Schoo! of Business at the University of Virginia, told his family that he was applying to go back to study, He wanted to pursue a Master of Studies in Practical Ethics focusing on Al at the University of Oxford.
His family’s verdict was clear. “They said: ‘you're crazy’ he recalls “You're insane. What are you doing?” Ashe also admits, he didn't need another degree.
He had, by then, a BSc in Electrical Engineering from Tufts University, an MSc in Management from MIT, and an EdD in Higher Education Management from the
ponder for a higher education leader.
“Alis relevant for higher education, business, geopolitics... for everybody,” he says.
“Iwas seeing what was happening with artificial intelligence, and | thought | really wanted to know more. A lot of the dilemmas | was facing as a dean at the time were ‘ethical in nature.”
He prepared his application for the degree during the Christmas vacation ~ unsure, he says, whether they'd accept a 60-year-old student.
In the end, it worked out; he was accepted into the programme and finished in ‘September 2025, just a few months before being appointed as the President of the University of Virginia,
The urgency to reflect on Al was timely, but Dr Beardsley was also inspired to go back to studying by a lifelong love for learning and eclectic interests.
“Lam just incredibly curious, and I wanted to keep developing mysel," he confesses, listing some topics he's interested in, which span from singing to landscape gardening, “Im still learning, | read a wide variety of books and talk to a wide variety of people. | am blessed being at a university where there are so many disciplines.”
‘On a visit to the UK, Dr Beardsley met a 90-year-old woman finishing her doctorate at the Open University
‘Signs of his love for learning appeared early.
His father's side of the family, he says, is “full of teachers”. His mother's side was dairy farmers. They always encouraged his education, he says, and his mother was the first in
her family to go to college ~ she studied nursing.
“Lreally learned a lot from them: to work hard, and that you get what you work for recalls.
Born in Maine, Dr Beardsley moved to Anchorage, Alaska, with his family when he was a child, Throughout his schooling in the public system (as in non-private, he specifies), he recalls being interested in everything; at first, he thought he'd become an astrophysicist ‘or a neurosurgeon, lke his grandmother and great-uncle,
But after school, he enrolled at Tufts University initially as a liberal arts student, although destiny — or the funding system — had other plans.
To go to university, he recalls, he gathered all his money ~ “| emptied my piggy bank,” he says — and borrowed the rest. It wasn't enough, so he applied for a scholarship. He won it, but there was a catch: the scholarship would only cover an electrical engineering degree.
"It paid 75 percent of my tuition, so | thought ~ well, | guess Illbe an engineer then, because if| don't, I don't know how | am going to finish school,” he recalls
‘The degree led to a pivotal moment in his life through an international education ‘experience: in his third year, looking to add more breadth to his education, he studied in
“That changed my life: | met my wife there," he says.
he started college, it opened up more opportunities for learning. “I changed pathways a lot; | didn’t know what | would end up becoming,” he says.
After the degree, he found a job in Silicon Valley working for a company, Advanced Microdevices, the stock of which he wishes he'd kept. Eventually, he started planning to {go back to studying, eyeing a business degree, but the cost issue sprang up again. “Iwas broke. |had a lot of debt. | realy wanted to broaden my horizons, but I didn’t know how to pay for that degree either,” he recalls.
‘And so he did. The degree turned out to be a good investment ~ after graduating, he landed a job with a signing bonus.
1 don't think everybody should follow the same path at the same time, but education is something that you need throughout your life,” he explains.
“it's part of developing as a human being, and that could be in the form of a degree, a short course, or learning a skill ora trade. | think the most important thing is that people develop themselves. The most important, the best invest ment you can make is in
Dr Beardsley then worked for 26 years at McKinsey & Company in Belgium. He transitioned to higher education in 2015, relocating to the historic heart of the University of Virginia campus.
His experience transitioning into higher education provided him with the inspiration to write a book, which was published in 2017 as Higher Calling: The Rise of Nontraditional Leaders in Academia.
“Nontraditional leaders ~ those coming from outside the traditional tenure-track pipeline — have become more common as governing boards seek executives skilled in crisis management, public policy, financial restructuring and large-scale enterprise strategy” he comments.
But, he adds: "I think acadernia needs the right leader to meet the challenges and ‘opportunities that a particular college or university might be facing. It’s about finding
It's unsurprising that someone who considers education the best investment one can make would be watching Al developments closely.
‘Al affects higher education, which is one of the reasons | was interested in it,” he says. “rarely have a meeting where somebody doesn't mention Al. It seems to be a mandatory subject of conversation in any meeting | have.” While Al can be a force for good, he says, it’s important that it's controlled — ina balanced way, finding an equilibrium between regulation and innovation. “It starts by saying: what's the purpose? “The objective function should be to develop humanity; [Al] should be a tool used to advance the human condition, not the other way around.”
In higher education, this translates to understanding how education can be enhanced ‘and not diminished by Al, and what skils students need to thrive in the Al era. “if you're studying, how do you make sure that you're the one that's learning and not just your Al tool? Al cannot do the learning for you,” he explains,
He believes in the Socratic method — and points to active participation in lectures, pen- and-paper exercises and oral exams as ways to ensure that education remains an ‘experience that develops students’ abilities ‘And while students will need to have the right skills to function in the Al era, those skills ‘go well beyond prompt engineering. “The most underdeveloped skills today are actually human: ethical judgment and interpersonal EQ," he says.
“The competitive edge in the modern job market isn't just knowing how to use the machine — it’s having the critical thinking and emotional intelligence to ask the right
questions and to know when to use the technology and when net to.
During his Master's at Oxford, Dr Beardsley analysed ethical questions around Al, for ‘example: should agentic Al be regulated as a legal person, such as a corporation? ‘Should it be treated as a stakeholder?
calls on humanity to answer some fundamental questions, he explains.
“Artificial intelligence basically asks us to reconsider what it means to be a person.
“And what is fair. For example, if you have to have data centres to support Al, and they have to have energy consumption associated with it, where should the energy go?
‘We have all of these challenges in society even without Al: energy consumption, global warming, The questions are just asked all over again with Al coming into being.” Disciplines such as the humanities, the arts and languages may be the fields where those fundamental questions can be tackled.
He recalls overhearing a conversation in Maine during the summer holidays. While he was having lunch, a group of parents at the table next to his were discussing their children’s education and said that philosophy and classics would become the new popular degrees.
world? Whats right? What is wrong? And how do | connect with other people? Languages, culture and the humanities are where you do that.”
As for Dr Beardsley, it's unclear whether there will be any new degrees in the future.
Practical Ethics from Oxford is my fourth degree,” he says.
