U-Va. alum discussed university issues with Terry McAuliffe - and donated $50,000 As prominent University of Virginia alumni lobby candidates for Virginia governor to involve the university community in selecting members for the Board of Visitors, a leader of the movement has donated $50,000 to Terry McAuliffe's campaign for governor. Jeffrey C. Walker, chairman of the U-Va. Council of Foundations, donated $25,000 to the Democratic candidate's campaign in early March and then another $25,000 in late July, according to the Virginia Public Access Project, which tracks political campaign donations. Walker's second donation came soon after he and key alumni spoke with McAuliffe and his policy director about issues at U-Va. - and soon after the candidate updated his higher education platform to reflect some of the alumni's ideas, according to e-mails released by the university to The Washington Post last week following a public records request. Walker, a former chairman and chief operating officer of a private equity firm, has donated tens of thousands of dollars to Democratic candidates and causes in recent years. His contribution to McAuliffe's campaign is far from being the largest sum accepted by either candidate in the closely watched race. There are no campaign contribution limits in Virginia, and candidates are required to report donations collected. None of the other alumni who are known to have joined the cause have donated directly to McAuliffe's campaign, according to the Virginia Public Access Project. Walker detailed the efforts of U-Va. alumni to sway the candidates in a July 23 e-mail to a New York hedge fund manager he was trying to recruit to the cause. Walker wrote in the e-mail that he and two other prominent U-Va. graduates, Paul Tudor Jones and Lee Ainslie, had recently spoken with McAuliffe and his policy director, Evan Feinman, about issues facing U-Va. The group's top priority is to have eight of the 17 board seats filled with appointees selected by the governor from a pool created by U-Va. alumni, donors, faculty, staff and others in the university community. "Terry McAuliffe was very responsive and indicated that he didn't approve of the system that has been recently used to source BOV candidates and that he definitely wanted to source great candidates and had every intention of sourcing them based on the recommendation of the UVA community," Walker wrote in that e-mail. He also expressed support for our views on the other points. Soon after that call, Walker wrote, Feinman told him that the campaign had "modified Terry's higher ed policy and had posted it to their Web site." The platform of "ensuring proper representation on governing boards" was added to McAuliffe's list of education-related platforms and reads: "It is critically important that alumni, staff, students and other members of college and university communities are involved in the selection of their governing boards. The Governor should solicit and respect slates of nominees from college and university communities when filling board slots. The campaign would not say whether McAuliffe would limit himself to only that pool for any or all of the board positions.