Online here. I’ll take a guess that he was hoping to talk about his “Oregon Commitment” initiatives, instead of having to rehash and defend Doug Park’s lousy decisions for the nth time: … University of Oregon President Michael Schill defended the university’s actions regarding a December 2014 transfer of medical records from…
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Reporter Olivia Decklar has the story in the Emerald, here: Results of the latest campus Climate Survey, conducted by Jennifer J. Freyd, University of Oregon psychology professor, revealed 100% of Fraternity and Sorority Life-affiliated female students that reported non-consensual sexual contact were violated by male perpetrators. “Imagine that Greek Life…
A bemused correspondent from our former interim provost’s new university reports that Provost James C. Bean has redone their org chart – looks like he’s finally figured out the color menu – and is now working on a new academic plan. Of course he is. Same old buzzwords though. Takes me back, it does.
11/10/2015: The NYT has the story, here:
… What the student demonstrators who toppled the president of the university system and the chancellor of its flagship campus in Columbia this week may not have known was that somewhere out there — in Frankfort, Ky., to be precise — one of those very students, Gus T. Ridgel, now 89, was watching.
In an interview, Mr. Ridgel said he was surprised and disappointed by the racist incidents at the university that prompted a campus upheaval. “I had always looked at the progress that had been made,” he said.
But as a doctorate-holding economist, he said he had to admire the boycotts of university businesses and athletics that Concerned Student 1950, the main student activist group, wielded to force those changes.
“Anything that affects the bottom line is going to get the attention of the leaders,” Mr. Ridgel said Tuesday.
… He gained admission to Missouri’s graduate program in economics in 1950 only after civil rights groups won a court ruling desegregating the university. He decided to attend knowing that one of the black men who had gone to court seeking to break the school’s color barrier had vanished. He lived alone in a two-bed dormitory room in the midst of a campus housing shortage, because no white student would room with him.
Blacks had but one opportunity for off-campus socializing, a coffee shop near the university bookstore. Mr. Ridgel recalled entering a second cafe with three white students: “The man looked up from the counter,” he said, “and said, ‘I can serve you three, but I can’t serve him.’
“And they said, ‘If you can’t serve the four of us, you can’t serve any of us.’ And we walked out.”
He speaks almost matter-of-factly of his past as a path-breaker, and remembers his time at the university, during an era when separate-but-equal was still the law of the land, as surprisingly free of conflict. He said his presence had provoked no racial epithets, like those hurled at the current student body president, who is black, or swastikas scrawled on campus buildings, like the one found in recent weeks.
Rather, a student poll claimed broad support for the admission of blacks. Classmates made a point of sitting with him for meals, he said — and, eventually, asking to study with him. …
There are plenty of things this man should be bitter about. He’s lived through years of racism and discrimination. But he’s not bitter at all. Except for those B’s in Econ.
11/9/2015: University presidents’ chickens come home to roost
Joe Nocera’s NYT column is here:
Update: The official website is here, and reporter Caley Eller has more details on Schill’s “Oregon Commitment” plan in the Emerald, here: Schill then announced the Oregon Commitment, a plan of seven initiatives and investments totaling $17 million over five years to support his goals. The first is supporting pipeline programs that…
No, this time it’s not about funding for education. It’s about government transparency and accountability. The Center for Public Integrity has the report here. For public access to information we’re behind Mississippi. Ian Kullgren has more in the Oregonian, here: … A report released in August by the Washington, D.C.-based Sunlight…
11/9/2015: That’s the report in the Daily Mail, here: The Swedish athletics officials so incensed by the decision to award the 2021 World Athletics Championships to Eugene in Oregon have vowed to ‘go back to the process’ if allegations of bribery are proven against former president Lamine Diack and other officials…
The NCAA made its annual release of graduation data last week, here. Despite UO’s $80M Jaqua Center for Student Athletes and the $2.4M SSA program (which UO’s non-athletic students pay for and which former Interim Provost and Athletic Director Lorraine Davis oversees at ~$200K a year), the graduation rates for Duck revenue sport athletes…
11/7/2015:
Apparently this win means the Ducks are going to some bowl game, and Helfrich gets a $50K bonus for that. Then we have to pay for all the admins and their families to go along for the junket. Here’s Tim Gleason, then Journalism Dean, now Faculty Athletics Representative, at the 2013 Fiesta Bowl student recruiting event:
VP for Enrollment Roger Thompson videotapes one or two humiliating events like this at every bowl game, so that the administrators can show the IRS there was a business purpose for their family’s holiday junket:
4/12/2015: Coach Helfrich’s raise totals more than all 1500 UO staff combined
UO has about 1500 staff workers, making an average wage of about $35,000 a year. Their SEIU local 503 is currently bargaining with OUS for a new contract. The OUS offer is an 0.5% COLA, or $175 each per year.
Meanwhile, the UO administration just found the money to give football coach Mark Helfrich a slightly larger raise:
Here’s the message from the SEIU local:
Higher Ed Management Proposals Not Unified Across State, Return to the “Big Three,” Attack Health Care, Steps, and More
No, this isn’t from the Duck Athletic Fund’s website, it’s from giving.uoregon.edu, the homepage of the UO campaign, which is supposed to be about the academic side of the fund-drive: To be fair, the other 4 landing pages are about academics. I guess 1 out of 5 ain’t bad. If you follow the…
1) Former Interim UO President Scott Coltrane removes UO Archives Director James Fox: 2) President Vladimir Putin removes Moscow Library of Ukrainian Literature Director Natalya Sharina:
11/5/2015: Jake New has the analysis in InsideHigherEd. The start: Last week, Brandon Austin, a former college basketball player, filed a lawsuit against the University of Oregon for $7.5 million, arguing that administrators there violated his rights when they suspended him over his alleged involvement in a gang rape. Austin was…
Updated with video below. Jon Bell has the report in the Portland Business Journal, here: … The building was purchased through an entity called OFX White Stag LLC, whose registered agents include Paul Weinhold, president of the U of O Foundation, Erika Funk, COO of the foundation and Wendy Lee…
To be broadcast this Thursday, 10:30AM West Coast time on ESPN’s Outside The Lines. The full broadcast apparently includes an interview with UO counselor Jennifer Morlok, who blew the whistle after UO lawyers Doug Park and Sam Hill got the records of her confidential counseling sessions with Jane Doe, the survivor…
After HLGR’s Sharon Rudnick and William F. Gary lost the Oregon Supreme Court case case defending Kitzhaber’s PERS reforms – just *how* much did they bill? – this was one of the few remaining cost-savings measures possible. FORTRAN programmer Mr. Fearless does the math for potential retirees on his excellent Persinfo blog, here:…