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Live blog: Margie Paris as Pres, and Senate agenda for 2/13/2013

Highlights of the Feb Senate meeting:

1) Gottfredson promised to either

a) make Randy Geller write an opinion explaining why he believes FERPA precludes faculty from seeing data that might allow them to identify individual students, or

b) finally give the IAC the data on academic performance of student athletes that they’ve been asking for since late May

2) The Senate voted 25 to 2 in favor of Nathan Tublitz’s motion to appoint a committee to write Provost Bean a glowing recommendation for a job as President at another university, or community college, somewhere far away. There was some back and forth on the deadlines, but the message to President Gottfredson was loud and clear: Start the search for new provost, or come back to the Senate within 60 days and tell us why you think we should suffer this fool for another year.

3) What’s it all worth?








Live blog disclaimer: My interpretation of what people said, meant to say, or what I wished they’d said. Nothing is a quote unless in quotes.

3:00: Guest blogger: Gottfredson, State of the U
– Happy to be here and impressed with student scholars.  they enrich
our campus immeasurably.  (Why do people say ‘immeasurably’ yet imply
that the measure, whatever it is, must be huge?)
– accomplishments
– great things (none of which are due to his influence, of course)
  – examples of ‘great’ things: atlas of yellowstone, peace corps
ranking (what about the AAU ranking?), Schnitzer exhibits,
– staff are awesome
– we’re awesome
– misrepresents the recent economic impact study as indicative of a
super-high return on investment.
– we’re one of the nation’s premier research universities

3:16: UOM: Low turnout of faculty. Peace Corp, economic impact. Donations are mostly for the jocks, but some increase in academic giving. Thanks to staff. What’s happening in Salem is critical. Support for in-state tuition for children of illegal aliens, worked well in CA. Foundations of this are in the Morrell Act. Our job as a public university. Mentions Ted Wheeler’s bond sale for student aid. Gov’s budget: Will he mention how we got screwed on capital funding? Nope. He will try to get funding for Science Library project added. Governance: Likes current legislative proposal, now in Senate. Working with PSU. Senate Business: New ombudsman from the Senate committee on respectful workplace. Reports to his office. Great idea.  Impartial 3rd party to help faculty, students, staff resolve disputes. Admin review and evaluation: Believes strongly in this, 5 year min, with lots of input from faculty and others. Will start in fall. Nothing on Bean.

Data: Supports IAC request, but allowed aggregation. Will work on a process to get data out to everyone’s satisfaction. More delays.

Drugs: Appoints Robin Holmes and a 6 member committee to stall. First I’ve heard of this.

Guns: Committee has been appointed, holding forums to collect public input, but of course the decision has already been made.

Q on Union: Progressing well.

Q on IAC data from Waddell: Data have to be made available, but …

Q from Bonine: No legal problem, so is issue that faculty are not trustworthy.

Follow up from Waddell and Harbaugh: Gottfredson: “I will be happy to ask the General Counsel to provide a statement”. Still not clear if he will release the data called for in the resolution.

Q Phillips: Any evidence our drug problem is worse than other universities, or increasing? No.

Kyr: New meeting for Academic freedom, facilities use, and what to do about the Geller problem:

(Obligatory Randy threat insert:) Then there’s this threat from Randy Geller, sent to Senate President Rob Kyr and IAC Chair Brian McWhorter this summer, threatened retaliation for meddling with his efforts to sneak Rob Mullens’s drug scheme through without faculty or public review:

… Your allegations about the University’s rulemaking processes are offensive and false , as are the comments made publicly by members of the Intercollegiate Athletics Committee. I ask that you apologize in writing to President Berdahl, Rob Mullens, and me. I also ask that you censure the members of the IAC who have published offensive and defamatory comments.

Randolph Geller  

General Counsel
University of Oregon
 

Bonine on Elections: 2 nominations for president for next year: Margie Paris from Law and Chris Phillips from Math. Statements, then a vote. Lots of service from both. Committee recommends Paris.

Phillips: If not elected I’ll go back to my research. Vision is organizational, policies to be decided by Senate not Senate President. One issue is transparency. Another is size of administration. Curious about MOOCs. Main campaign promise: Better spam blocking. Gonna be tough for Paris to beat that!

Q on governance: not into sharing. Will work for Senate.
Q on getting more Senate participation: Yup, not many people here, that’s a problem. No specific ideas, other than agreeing to serve myself.
Kyr: Seems we need more than “Around the O” to get people interested.

Paris: Faculty, was Dean for 2 years, happily back with the faculty. Likes to help the underdogs. Senate has important role, is way to do this. Kyr has done important things, e.g.: Faculty evaluations of administrators – Model for what Senate can do. Also Committee on Committees 10 year review, important momentum. Wants to see good work of past two years continue.

Senate must push back against admin at times, that’s a good thing.
Transparency: vital for university, need clear procedures, faculty also has to be responsible for not overtaxing the system.

Vote: Paris wins, starts work immediately as VP. Question about announcing the numbers: 4 for Phillips, 23 for the pro-spam candidate.

Guns: This decision has been made already, so I’m going to save you the trouble of reading the arguments.

Executive review: moving along nicely.

Bean review: Time to do it. Complement to executive review motion. Passes with two nays.

5:00 Gottfredson, Paris, and many others bail.

Huaxin: Move to adjourn:

2/12/13: Communications and Agenda

Excellent news from Robert Kyr:

I’m thrilled to announce that the Nominating Committee has approved the candidacy of Professor Margaret (“Margie”) Paris for Senate President-elect (VP for 2012-2013 & President for 2013-2014). Professor Paris’ departmental bio can be accessed through this link: http://law.uoregon.edu/faculty/mparis/

As of today, I have not received any other nominations. If you would like to make a nomination, please contact me before February 13th, so that the Nominating Committee can perform its duties and present a slate of candidates to the Senate on this coming Wednesday.

Senate Meeting Agenda – February 13, 2013

Knight Library Room 101, 3:00‐5:00 pm
3:00 pm 1. Call to Order
1.1 Approval of the Minutes of the November 7, December 5, & January 16
Senate Meetings

3:05 pm 2. State of the University
2.1 Remarks by President Michael Gottfredson
2.1.1 Questions and Comments with Response
2.2 Remarks by Senate President Robert Kyr

3:45 pm 3. New Business I

3.1 Election for Senate President-Elect (Vice President 2012-2013)
3.2 Election of IFS Senator (Third Seat)

4:00 pm 4. Reports I

4.1 “Possible Police Arming”; UO Police Department
4.1.1 Questions and Comments with Response
4.2 Senate Executive Review Committee Report on “Review of Executive Administrators
and “Faculty Input into Hiring Executive Administrators” (US12/13-03 & US12/13-04);
Robert Kyr, Senate President

4:20 pm 5. New Business II

5.1 Motion (Legislation Reconsidered): Performance Review of Provost James C. Bean;
Nathan Tublitz, Professor (Biology)
5.2 Motion (Legislation): Senate Review of Teaching Evaluation Process; Steven Pologe,
University Senator and Professor (School of Music)
5.3 Motion (Resolution): Information Regarding the UO Affiliated Golf Course; Bob
Doppelt, Adjunct Assoc. Professor (PPPM) Presented by Bill Harbaugh (Economics),
UO Senator

4:40 pm 6. Reports II
6.1 IAC Report on Random Drug Testing OAR; Brian McWhorter, Chair,
Intercollegiate Athletics Committee (IAC)
6.2 Senate Ad Hoc Committee on Respectful Workplace; Emilio Hernandez, Chair
6.3 Data and Documents for IAC & Clarifying FERPA; Brian McWhorter, Chair, IAC
6.4 Study Space Prioritization; Harlan Mechling, ASUO Director of Academic Affairs
6.5 ASUO Report; ASUO President
6.6 UA Senate Liaison Committee; Gordon Sayre, Professor (English)

4:55 pm 7. Announcements and Communications from the Floor

7.1 Notice of Motion (Resolution): Marriage Equality; Ben Bowman, ASUO Senator
7.2 Notice of Motion (Legislation): Meaningful Contributions from the Athletics
Department to Presidential Scholarships; Bill Harbaugh (Economics), UO Senator
7.3 Notice of Motion (Legislation): Clarifying the Wording of Graduate Degrees;
John Bonine (Law), UO Senator
7.4 Notice of Motion (Resolution): Senate Support for the Addition of an Ombuds Office
at the UO; Emilio Hernandez (Chair), Senate Ad Hoc Committee on Respectful Workplace
7.5 Notice of Motion (Legislation): Academic Credit for Military Science Courses;
Frank Stahl, Professor Emeritus (Biology)
7.6 Notice of Motion (Legislation): Term Limits for the Office of Senate President; Senate
Executive Committee
7.7 Notice of Motion (Legislation): Timing of Elections for Senate Officers and IFS Senators;
Senate Executive Committee
7.8 Notice of Motion (Legislation):Union Negotiations Regarding Academic Freedom;
Roxann Prazniak, CHC & University Senator
7.9 Notice of Motion (Legislation): Union Negotiations Regarding Shared Governance;
Roxann Prazniak, CHC & University Senator

5:00 pm 8. Adjournment

I’ll try and live-blog the meeting:

10 Comments

  1. Anonymous 02/12/2013

    Excellent news. Thanks, Margie.

  2. Anonymous 02/13/2013

    Things are looking up!

  3. Anonymous 02/13/2013

    Professor Paris, as a law professor, is not a part of the faculty bargaining unit. Auspicious!

  4. Anonymous 02/14/2013

    Chris Phillips for Senate President: Less spam, more donuts.

  5. Anonymous 02/14/2013

    I would prefer that untrustworthy faculty not carry guns – union or no.

  6. Anonymous 02/14/2013

    …especially on drugs.

  7. Anonymous 02/14/2013

    How about getting Oprah on campus?

  8. Anonymous 02/14/2013

    Paris just loves that little dog.

  9. Anonymous 02/14/2013

    Bean’s always well groomed, maybe some cosmetology school needs a Provost?

  10. Anonymous 02/14/2013

    1) False
    2) False
    3) True

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