Two months ago, University of Virginia President Scott Beardsley addressed Â鶹ĆĆ˝â°ć Class of 2026 at Final Exercises. On Saturday, the University’s 10th president donned another cap and gown at Christopher Wren’s Sheldonian Theatre, this time as a graduate of Oxford’s Pembroke College, where he earned a Master of Studies in Practical Ethics with a focus on artificial intelligence ethics.
Beardsley studied within the Uehiro Oxford Institute – closely linked with the Faculty of Philosophy – through Oxford’s Department for Continuing Education.
His Oxford studies started in 2023 when Beardsley was the dean of the Darden School of Business. He understood that ethics, and particularly the ethics of rapidly evolving AI technology, would be critically important not only for current leaders but for future leaders earning degrees at UVA.
Beardsley, who describes himself as “a voracious lifelong learner,” began looking for university-based programs focused on ethics and artificial intelligence. The Oxford program was both top-ranked and offered a hybrid format, combining concentrated in-person residences and periods of distance learning and independent study – including a dissertation – so he could continue in his role at Darden. It was not unfamiliar territory for Beardsley, who has earned four degrees in four different disciplines while working full-time or nearly so during each one.
While in Oxford for graduation, Beardsley, a French American dual citizen who has made Â鶹ĆĆ˝â°ć international stature and offerings an early priority in his presidency, also got a glimpse of Â鶹ĆĆ˝â°ć longstanding partnerships with England’s oldest university. He met with students in the UVA in Oxford program, which welcomes Hoos to Oxford each summer for courses in history, politics, economics and public policy through Oxford’s University College.
Beardsley visits with UVA administrators and students in London, including Mark Thomas, left photo, the UVA in Oxford program director. (Photo by Caroline Newman)
During Beardsley’s visit, students were in the program’s second week. They told the president about their courses and about their visits to London’s historic Globe Theatre for a production of Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” and Blenheim Palace, birthplace of Sir Winston Churchill. Trips to Stonehenge and the Royal Shakespeare Theatre were still to come.
Beardsley also had coffee with Rotary Scholar Owen Selden and Marshall Scholar Catherine Cossaboom. Selden is finishing a master’s degree in global health science and epidemiology before entering medical school this fall, while Cossaboom is earning a degree in mathematics.
Like the students, Beardsley came to Oxford searching for answers. When he began the program, the public version of ChatGPT had just been released, and major tech companies like Microsoft and Google were preparing their own generative AI models. Beardsley, who was a global expert on internet and telecommunications technology and regulation during his career with McKinsey & Company, based in Brussels, Belgium, recognized a big shift was coming.
“With the rise of AI, I felt there was a new need to come up to speed on how to think about it,” he said. “I realized that this would become a major issue for higher education specifically, as well as society in general, and that we would need to think about how to regulate this technology and what ethics would come into play.”
His dissertation focused on a key regulatory question: Should agentic AI be treated and regulated as a stakeholder and legal person, as a corporation would be? Beardsley chose the topic in part because it connected with his Darden colleague Ed Freeman’s concept of stakeholder theory, which holds that a company should create value for all parties affected by its business, rather than mostly for shareholders. In Freeman’s view, corporations are legal persons responsible for how their actions affect different groups. Beardsley ultimately concluded that AI should not be treated as a legal person in regulation, noting that it is a “slippery slope” that, among other things, could lead to an AI owning property or a bank account without a human being involved and accountable.
Rotary Scholar Owen Selden and Marshall Scholar Catherine Cossaboom, both 2025 graduates, meet with Beardsley to share their academic experiences in London. (Photo by Caroline Newman)
However, he reasoned, the concept of focusing AI regulation on creating value for all groups affected by AI models, remains critically important. “AI is a tool that should have an objective function that benefits humanity, not the other way around,” he added.
“As dean, and now as president, my team and I are constantly facing ethical questions and issues,” Beardsley said. “At UVA, the new LaCross Institute for Ethical Artificial Intelligence in Business will be a great place to deepen our understanding.”
Oxford philosophy and ethics education tends to focus on teaching students how to think about their ideas from all angles, Beardsley said. Often, students are presented with a complex ethical issue and asked to make a case for their position. Then, they must take the opposite point of view and attack their initial arguments before rebutting the attacks and ultimately reaching a conclusion.
“What I learned, and what I knew inherently, is that there are always arguments against something,” Beardsley said. “Whatever point of view you have, you have to define your terms and think through the opposite point of view. The very structure means that you have to learn from and think through viewpoints that are different from yours.”
Beadsley continued: “This is all very relevant to UVA, where many people have different points of view, including on how terms are defined. If there is viewpoint diversity, and if we design that into our learning, it is a very effective method, like the Socratic method used at Darden and the School of Law.”
