Last updated on 02/26/2016
Rumor down at the faculty club is that Scalia is up for a posthumous honorary degree. Today at 3PM, Knight Library. Agenda here. Live video here.
Update: Turns out I was wrong about Scalia getting an honorary degree. The National Inquirer has the shocking truth, and the NYT documents that this wasn’t Scalia’s first “rodeo”, as they say in El Paso:
Semi-live blog: Usual disclaimer. My opinion of what people said, meant, or should have said or meant. Nothing is a quote unless in quotes.
Browsing Room, Knight Library; 3:00-5:00 pm
3:00 pm Introductory Remarks, Senate President Randy Sullivan
3:05 pm 1. Call to Order
3:05 pm 2. Approval of Minutes
3:15 pm 4. New Business
4.1 US15/16-12: New Program Approval, M.S. in Sports Product Design; Scott Pratt, Dean of the Graduate School
Harbaugh asked some tough – and therefore civil – questions of Coltrane on the funding, quoting from Coltrane’s own last minute MOU giving AAA $5.3M:
Coltrane evades as he often does, but says the HECC has also asked that these sorts of proposals come with more useful financial info.
Laura Lee McIntyre (School Psychology) objects to Harbaugh (Economics) asking economic questions in the Senate. Sullivan (Chemistry) defends economics.
Craig Parsons (Poli Sci) attempts to connect Harbaugh’s economic questions to the Nazis – the first known invocation of Goodwin’s Law in the UO Senate. (Craig apologized profusely afterwards for the Nazi comment. I told him no worries, I’d have fun blogging about it. Maybe too much fun.)
Harbaugh says he supports the proposal (the Sports Product Design proposal, not the tenets of National Socialism) despite the unsatisfactory answers to economic questions involving general fund support for this and the related SPM program from Coltrane.
Program passes unanimously.
4.2 US15/16-18: Revision of the Membership of the Graduate Council; Senate Executive Committee
Amended to make it a non-voting member to act as a liaison. Passes unanimously.
4.3 US15/16-19: Revision of the Policy on Conferral of Posthumous Degrees; Senate Executive Committee
Comes from the administration, cleanup of burdensome procedures in current policy. Still some issues, Bonine (Law) catches some other issues. Amended, passes unanimously.
3:50 pm 5. Open Discussion
5.1 Accelerated Learning
HECC is considering proposals to drastically expand programs by which HS teachers can award college credit for HS classes.
What could possibly go wrong? Sue Eveland (Registrar) has a few thoughts…. So does the rest of the Senate.
Sullivan asks why we have not heard from UO’s much admired Ed School on these proposals?
5.2 US15/16-17: Policy on Confidentiality of Student Health Care and Survivors’ Services Information
GC Kevin Reed presents some issues with the current emergency policy, involving the Health Center leaderships need to see records for QC, and the GC’s need to perform its risk management function.
Sullivan asks where in the revisions is here any indication of the firewall that Reed said there would be between the Health Center and the long list of UO officials that would be allowed, under the revisions, to access confidential student counseling records. VPSL Robin Holmes could get them? WTF?
GC Kevin Reed’s answers are less than satisfying.
Bonine praises the existing emergency policy, which he helped write, but wants to see the rationale for these amendments before the Senate votes. Counseling Center Director Shelly Kerr tried to hide the paper trail. Could that happen again?
We’re getting into the weeds on this. Bitter weeds that have cost UO millions and incalculable reputational damage, and which must be rooted out lest they reseed themselves, as weeds will do.
Bonine goes on, in a harangue worthy of Stalin’s speech to the 19th Party Congress, but longer. Sullivan bangs him into silence. Good for Randy. More good questions on the revisions come from David Espinoza (Counseling) and John Ahlen (International Affairs).
4:45 pm 6. Reports
6.1 Report from Faculty Athletics Representative (FAR); Tim Gleason
It took years, but back in 2013 we finally got former FAR Jim O’Fallon to deliver a long-winded report. Boy was he mad. Nothing in writing as Senate rules require, of course. Video here. He starts at 102:30 and goes on for quite a while.
I asked our new FAR, Tim Gleason, to give the Senate the following information for his report, in writing:
FAR Report to Senate:
Written report distributed 48 hours in advance, with Q&A at meeting and by email if time pressure.
Distribution of majors, online classes, classes transferred from other schools to meet UO requirements.
Admissions: Gleason not involved in admissions. Senate will want to see data on entering students including GPA/SAT etc. Tim will try to get these from Admissions.
In general all data broken out by team, or by gender & revenue/non-revenue. Berkeley as a model. Gleason will clear FERPA with GCO.
Well-being: Time demands, travel schedules, procedures for checking for academic conflicts.
O’Heroes – rules and time demands?
Follow-up after graduation – What happens to UO athletes after they’re done?
NCAA violation reports.
Heads up on coming NCAA legislation and outcomes of Jan convention. Senate/IAC should have input into UO’s position on these matters.
Update on AD efforts to prevent sexual violence.
The Senate did not receive a written report from Gleason until just before (during?) the meeting. Mea Culpa: This was largely due to Harbaugh’s lateness in meeting with Gleason to discuss what info would be most useful for the Senate report.
Harbaugh, taking the gavel after Sullivan’s sudden departure from the meeting, (he’s fine, touch of the flu) suggests to Gleason that he come back after the Senate has had time to digest his written report. Gleason likes this idea, and so does the Senate, which breaks into applause.
The Senate then returns to some additional discussion of the counseling confidentiality policy. Bonine asserts personal privilege to object to something Reed said about him earlier (sorry, I forget what) and Reed’s comments that it is not helpful to rehash the history of the General Counsel office’s botched grab of Jane Doe’s counseling records.
Harbaugh asserts personal privilege to invoke the memory of his father and note that history can be useful. Which is not something I ever thought I would need to say in a University Senate meeting.
4:45 pm 7. Notice(s) of Motion
Max Burns (AAD grad student) gives notice of a motion to object to plans to compel UO freshmen to live on campus, in what some have called a thinly veiled attempt to justify building a new dorm that can be used to house the “IAAF Family” in the style to which they have become accustomed.
4:45 pm 8. Other Business
None.
5:00 pm 9. Adjournment
The Senate completes another exciting session on time.
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