Sad, very sad. Dean Marcus puts a brave face on it with talk of building a “world class university.” It sounds like a university in a lot of trouble to me. Still $4 million deficit in the CAS budget. Has it ever really been explained where that came from? Law school hemorrhage, declining enrollments in CAS? Central administration taking away money for their plans — dare I say schemes? — for cluster hires and the like?
This really represents a failure of the board of trustees to me. A lot seems to be going wrong here. I know some ratty old buildings, I don’t mean PLC. Multiple restrooms on multiple floors out for weeks on end. A very necessary elevator out since December! I’ve never seen basic building maintenance as bad as it is now. To use a homespun expression, the trustees don’t seem to be able to bring home the bacon. They aren’t even keeping the mush pot full.
There really needs to be some talk about the apparent desperate attempts to stay in the AAU. The cluster hires seem to be sucking money away from everywhere. The central administration reportedly is using “metrics” to rate each sub-program on whether and how much it can be used to burnish the UO image to the AAU. It is not 160/90 — my blood pressure when I think about this stuff! — but it is in a similar vein. Marketing, branding. The life of the mind, not.
XDH
01/22/2016
During my time as DH, I interacted closely with the individuals holding 4 of the 5 positions that were cut. While it is really, really sad to see people being let go, I would also contend, based on those interactions, that these are the few places where CAS could possibly trim (to the bone mind you) if absolutely forced to. Well, it sounds like Schill forced CAS to.
Honest Uncle Bernie is spot on. The Trustees (and last year’s interim senior leadership) have failed UO miserably. For the ongoing $2B fundraising campaign, with all the fanfare when it was rolled out 18 months ago, all I hear are crickets chirping, if even that noise. I too fully understand Bernie’s facilities comments. I am tired of walking up and down multiple flights of stairs b/c of a crappy elevator that will be out of commission for another 2+ months. In addition, I know my female compatriots would desperately like restroom facilities that work instead of having to walk two buildings over to conduct needed business. It is also telling when you describe to facilities employees about impending renovations, that they laugh at you saying the building infrastructure cannot handle such renovations.
Finally, while not quite as pessimistic about the cluster hires and other initiatives benefitting a select few, I would contend that it is important for Johnson and Friendly Halls to clearly and articulately state what the “metrics” are by which programs will be evaluated, something which so far has not happened. Simply examining the big green overhead dollars generated is not enough – number of papers, citations, impact factors, h-index, Google Scholar i10-index, etc, MANY other factors need to be factored in. Whether the stupid “flowers” from Academic Analytics are good enough, I cannot say. Nonetheless, a broad-based, thorough examination of “metrics” is warranted.
Dumpster fire
01/23/2016
Wise XDH (here’s hoping the current DH will be XDH soon) correctly points out that it is going to be hard to achieve the administration’s goals with our crumbling infrastructure. Onyx and Klamath are gigantic money pits with long histories of renovations that go way over budget and take at least twice as long as expected.
honest Uncle Bernie
01/23/2016
Lighting fires in dumpsters is not smart! And starting — or continuing — a department pissing match in public is not a great idea. Looking at the currently most successful UO science departments — as measured in various external reputation rankings — they seem to be the ones with less rancor. For one thing, the students notice, whether they realize it or not. So do faculty prospects.
I imagine that both XDH and current DH in your department have their fans and booers. I imagine that both have given a lot to do their jobs. Give ’em a break (within limits), is my recommendation. Your department will feel better, and so will you.
XDH
01/23/2016
Honest UB is right here – careful where one lights a match. Whether or not I agree with my successor and his/her decisions, he/she was willing to step up to the plate when many, many others were not.
Dumpster fire
01/23/2016
Thanks for the lecture UB – I thought we were allowed one zinger per comment on our host’s blog. You are probably correct that there is a correlation between the level of rancor and the success of the department, although one may question if the the relationship is causal. I’ll retreat to my (now warm) surroundings. xoxo
jbones
01/26/2016
What if everything’s based on Rate My Professors? ;)
anonymous
01/23/2016
Sounds hilarious! They are supposedly trying to attract high profile new hires in the bio/chem/materials areas. Sometimes under orders to move quickly. What are they going to use to attract them? Out-of-commission restrooms and broken elevators? I hope they don’t let the recruits talk too much to the grunts in facilities services!
It really bugs me that Schill said, or implied, that there is widespread waste at UO. Then they pull this on/at CAS. As XDH says, cut to the bone. It is not like they were hog fat over there.
Am I wrong in thinking Schill seems to be blaming the existing institution at least in part for its precarious status in the AAU? In truth, I think UO has done pretty well given the lousy hand it has been dealt by the state the past few years. Actually, I think UO has done better given what it has than the University of Chicago has done give what it has, though neither has exactly been handed things on a silver platter lately.
OK, Mr. Schill, knock UO, but let’s see some “bacon” soon. Especially given your fat compensation package. $800K is a lot. Time to deliver.
Dysfunction
01/22/2016
One of the many problems I have seen at the university has been the lack of efficiency in basic business processes across the entire campus. Most are manual and require people (how many executive assistants do we have on campus?). There is nothing wrong with that if it is the way you choose to do business- but there is a cost – paying people to make sure everything works. The infrastructure, as is, won’t allow us to automate many functions without some serious overhaul. I don’t see how we can make these kind of cuts (19%) and still expect to operate doing “business as usual.” Something has to give. If departments have to make these kinds of budget cuts then Johnson Hall needs to provide a way for departments to do business with less people. I am sure there are others that have been here longer that have an opinion and better insights.
KnockKnock
01/22/2016
Budget overages all go back to the same source: administrators. The administration of any department is responsible for managing, or as the case is with many departments, mismanaging, their budgets. If you don’t have it, then do not spend it.
Another very sad part of this overspending is watching administrators that have a sense of entitlement waste money on building what they believe is their legacy, when in reality the only thing they are really doing is setting the stage to ruin the lives of others by having to reduce costs by eliminating positions. I’m not saying this is the case with CAS, but it is certainly the case with other departments where administrators have put themselves first and the university and its employees in distant second.
I’m sorry to see anyone lose their job, especially when it could have been prevented to begin with.
thedude
01/22/2016
A lot of these titles sound made up. Associate dean for finance and adminsitration? So Deans don’t know how to use excel on their own? Or can’t have one staffer use excel for them and explain to them how to balance a budget? Extra people to sit in meetings. I think the CAS machine will keep chugging along just fine.
XDH
01/22/2016
Sorry, but you are one clueless dude on this issue. The CAS budget is scarily complex. While I am not entirely certain the current (and soon to be released) person in the position ever came fully up to speed, his predecessor was one wickedly sharp, on-top-of-the-game cookie that was not one to argue with!
anonymous
01/23/2016
dude, you do sound clueless. A $100+ million budget needs a full-time staffer. Call it an associate dean or whatever. Especially to help negotiate with the higher ups and the lower downs. It is not just a matter of balancing the checkbook. Even my own department, with a budget (including grants) of a small fraction of $100M, has a (needed) full-time financial person.
daffy duck
01/22/2016
.unfortunately, prudent financial management tends to be punished and deficits rewarded by central administration, which is part of the backstory on current problems.
anonymous
01/23/2016
Can you say more about who has been rewarded lately for running deficits? Where did the CAS deficit come from?
Daffy duck
01/23/2016
On the latter, an insider would need to answer on the details. On the former, apparently 12 mill went to Law, mostly, all? From CAS, but again, only someone inside would know.
Compulsory Pessimist
01/23/2016
I, for one, have been looking forward to Gordon Taylor’s absence since his hire. He is no Marianne Nicols.
anon and on and on
01/23/2016
Agreed–and it would be great for morale if he is sent packing. He seemed not to understand the actual mission of a research university, or the need to work in concert with the other associate deans. The “compulsory pessimist” in me is half expecting to hear that he’s going to be promoted and not actually cut loose.
Jack Straw Man
01/23/2016
It’s probably worth noting that this memo is carefully timed and worded to forestall complaints. CAS is about to roll out significant cuts to teaching strength. This seems calculated to show soon-to-be-complaining faculty like myself that CAS admins are trying to share the burden.
I’m sure I sound cynical when I say this is a calculated move. But I will also say this: as much as I will no doubt complain when the faculty cuts come, I would have complained more if CAS hadn’t gone public with these administrative cuts first. It may be a calculated move, but it’s a smart one, and probably a necessary one.
That said, I would feel even better about it had it been accompanied by an honest accounting of why we’re in this hole. Not to mention some indication that athletics might have to share the burden, too.
Texas Guy
01/23/2016
Yes, agreed with Jack Straw Man above — an honest accounting, including transfers from CAS to other units, acknowledging/accounting for athletics subsidies, and sharing the burden by *all* including athletics would make a big difference.
Sad, very sad. Dean Marcus puts a brave face on it with talk of building a “world class university.” It sounds like a university in a lot of trouble to me. Still $4 million deficit in the CAS budget. Has it ever really been explained where that came from? Law school hemorrhage, declining enrollments in CAS? Central administration taking away money for their plans — dare I say schemes? — for cluster hires and the like?
This really represents a failure of the board of trustees to me. A lot seems to be going wrong here. I know some ratty old buildings, I don’t mean PLC. Multiple restrooms on multiple floors out for weeks on end. A very necessary elevator out since December! I’ve never seen basic building maintenance as bad as it is now. To use a homespun expression, the trustees don’t seem to be able to bring home the bacon. They aren’t even keeping the mush pot full.
There really needs to be some talk about the apparent desperate attempts to stay in the AAU. The cluster hires seem to be sucking money away from everywhere. The central administration reportedly is using “metrics” to rate each sub-program on whether and how much it can be used to burnish the UO image to the AAU. It is not 160/90 — my blood pressure when I think about this stuff! — but it is in a similar vein. Marketing, branding. The life of the mind, not.
During my time as DH, I interacted closely with the individuals holding 4 of the 5 positions that were cut. While it is really, really sad to see people being let go, I would also contend, based on those interactions, that these are the few places where CAS could possibly trim (to the bone mind you) if absolutely forced to. Well, it sounds like Schill forced CAS to.
Honest Uncle Bernie is spot on. The Trustees (and last year’s interim senior leadership) have failed UO miserably. For the ongoing $2B fundraising campaign, with all the fanfare when it was rolled out 18 months ago, all I hear are crickets chirping, if even that noise. I too fully understand Bernie’s facilities comments. I am tired of walking up and down multiple flights of stairs b/c of a crappy elevator that will be out of commission for another 2+ months. In addition, I know my female compatriots would desperately like restroom facilities that work instead of having to walk two buildings over to conduct needed business. It is also telling when you describe to facilities employees about impending renovations, that they laugh at you saying the building infrastructure cannot handle such renovations.
Finally, while not quite as pessimistic about the cluster hires and other initiatives benefitting a select few, I would contend that it is important for Johnson and Friendly Halls to clearly and articulately state what the “metrics” are by which programs will be evaluated, something which so far has not happened. Simply examining the big green overhead dollars generated is not enough – number of papers, citations, impact factors, h-index, Google Scholar i10-index, etc, MANY other factors need to be factored in. Whether the stupid “flowers” from Academic Analytics are good enough, I cannot say. Nonetheless, a broad-based, thorough examination of “metrics” is warranted.
Wise XDH (here’s hoping the current DH will be XDH soon) correctly points out that it is going to be hard to achieve the administration’s goals with our crumbling infrastructure. Onyx and Klamath are gigantic money pits with long histories of renovations that go way over budget and take at least twice as long as expected.
Lighting fires in dumpsters is not smart! And starting — or continuing — a department pissing match in public is not a great idea. Looking at the currently most successful UO science departments — as measured in various external reputation rankings — they seem to be the ones with less rancor. For one thing, the students notice, whether they realize it or not. So do faculty prospects.
I imagine that both XDH and current DH in your department have their fans and booers. I imagine that both have given a lot to do their jobs. Give ’em a break (within limits), is my recommendation. Your department will feel better, and so will you.
Honest UB is right here – careful where one lights a match. Whether or not I agree with my successor and his/her decisions, he/she was willing to step up to the plate when many, many others were not.
Thanks for the lecture UB – I thought we were allowed one zinger per comment on our host’s blog. You are probably correct that there is a correlation between the level of rancor and the success of the department, although one may question if the the relationship is causal. I’ll retreat to my (now warm) surroundings. xoxo
What if everything’s based on Rate My Professors? ;)
Sounds hilarious! They are supposedly trying to attract high profile new hires in the bio/chem/materials areas. Sometimes under orders to move quickly. What are they going to use to attract them? Out-of-commission restrooms and broken elevators? I hope they don’t let the recruits talk too much to the grunts in facilities services!
It really bugs me that Schill said, or implied, that there is widespread waste at UO. Then they pull this on/at CAS. As XDH says, cut to the bone. It is not like they were hog fat over there.
Am I wrong in thinking Schill seems to be blaming the existing institution at least in part for its precarious status in the AAU? In truth, I think UO has done pretty well given the lousy hand it has been dealt by the state the past few years. Actually, I think UO has done better given what it has than the University of Chicago has done give what it has, though neither has exactly been handed things on a silver platter lately.
OK, Mr. Schill, knock UO, but let’s see some “bacon” soon. Especially given your fat compensation package. $800K is a lot. Time to deliver.
One of the many problems I have seen at the university has been the lack of efficiency in basic business processes across the entire campus. Most are manual and require people (how many executive assistants do we have on campus?). There is nothing wrong with that if it is the way you choose to do business- but there is a cost – paying people to make sure everything works. The infrastructure, as is, won’t allow us to automate many functions without some serious overhaul. I don’t see how we can make these kind of cuts (19%) and still expect to operate doing “business as usual.” Something has to give. If departments have to make these kinds of budget cuts then Johnson Hall needs to provide a way for departments to do business with less people. I am sure there are others that have been here longer that have an opinion and better insights.
Budget overages all go back to the same source: administrators. The administration of any department is responsible for managing, or as the case is with many departments, mismanaging, their budgets. If you don’t have it, then do not spend it.
Another very sad part of this overspending is watching administrators that have a sense of entitlement waste money on building what they believe is their legacy, when in reality the only thing they are really doing is setting the stage to ruin the lives of others by having to reduce costs by eliminating positions. I’m not saying this is the case with CAS, but it is certainly the case with other departments where administrators have put themselves first and the university and its employees in distant second.
I’m sorry to see anyone lose their job, especially when it could have been prevented to begin with.
A lot of these titles sound made up. Associate dean for finance and adminsitration? So Deans don’t know how to use excel on their own? Or can’t have one staffer use excel for them and explain to them how to balance a budget? Extra people to sit in meetings. I think the CAS machine will keep chugging along just fine.
Sorry, but you are one clueless dude on this issue. The CAS budget is scarily complex. While I am not entirely certain the current (and soon to be released) person in the position ever came fully up to speed, his predecessor was one wickedly sharp, on-top-of-the-game cookie that was not one to argue with!
dude, you do sound clueless. A $100+ million budget needs a full-time staffer. Call it an associate dean or whatever. Especially to help negotiate with the higher ups and the lower downs. It is not just a matter of balancing the checkbook. Even my own department, with a budget (including grants) of a small fraction of $100M, has a (needed) full-time financial person.
.unfortunately, prudent financial management tends to be punished and deficits rewarded by central administration, which is part of the backstory on current problems.
Can you say more about who has been rewarded lately for running deficits? Where did the CAS deficit come from?
On the latter, an insider would need to answer on the details. On the former, apparently 12 mill went to Law, mostly, all? From CAS, but again, only someone inside would know.
I, for one, have been looking forward to Gordon Taylor’s absence since his hire. He is no Marianne Nicols.
Agreed–and it would be great for morale if he is sent packing. He seemed not to understand the actual mission of a research university, or the need to work in concert with the other associate deans. The “compulsory pessimist” in me is half expecting to hear that he’s going to be promoted and not actually cut loose.
It’s probably worth noting that this memo is carefully timed and worded to forestall complaints. CAS is about to roll out significant cuts to teaching strength. This seems calculated to show soon-to-be-complaining faculty like myself that CAS admins are trying to share the burden.
I’m sure I sound cynical when I say this is a calculated move. But I will also say this: as much as I will no doubt complain when the faculty cuts come, I would have complained more if CAS hadn’t gone public with these administrative cuts first. It may be a calculated move, but it’s a smart one, and probably a necessary one.
That said, I would feel even better about it had it been accompanied by an honest accounting of why we’re in this hole. Not to mention some indication that athletics might have to share the burden, too.
Yes, agreed with Jack Straw Man above — an honest accounting, including transfers from CAS to other units, acknowledging/accounting for athletics subsidies, and sharing the burden by *all* including athletics would make a big difference.