Full disclosure update: For all I know this program is a noble one. See the comments. But the provenance and timing is suspicious, I don’t have the $1,000 Dave Hubin would presumably charge me to seen the public records that would establish this, and he’d redact them anyway. 11/24/2014: My…
Posts published in “Uncategorized”
Fascinating story by Diane Dietz in the RG, here.
Diane Dietz reports the sad news on Ed Awh and Ed Vogel, two top “cluster of excellence” professors who are leaving UO for the University of Chicago, in the RG here. The report on our newly appointed and overpaid Interim VP for Research Brad Shelton is here. UO Today video…
11/21/2014 update: The video from the Nov 19th Senate meeting debate on legislation to oppose the administration’s efforts to “dilute and degrade academic standards and the secretive process by which it was made” instead of negotiating a fair deal for the grad students, is now posted. Please note the time…
Scroll down for the Senate agenda and live-blog.
Institutionalized News Media Updates:
Once again Johnson Hall’s administrative incompetence crowds out the important news, in this case Chuck Lillis’s speech. Alexandra Wallachy does have this in the Emerald: UO has “bad reputation” for faculty-admin relations, Lillis says. And well paid former TV journalist and UO PR flack Jennifer Winters has the spin in “Around the 0“.
Chronicle of Higher Education: University of Oregon Draws Criticism for Response to Threatened TA Strike
The University of Oregon’s Senate voted overwhelmingly on Thursday to rebuke the institution’s administration for planning for a threatened strike by graduate teaching assistants in a manner that bypasses the faculty and stands to bring about “the dilution and degradation of teaching standards.”
The Senate, which includes representatives of the faculty, student body, administration, and staff, adopted the motion in response to a confidential memorandum that Oregon’s top academic and human-resources administrators sent to deans and directors last month. …
Scott Greenstone has a good report in the Emerald on the dilute and degrade legislation, here:
By supporting this resolution, University Senate is saying two things:
– University Senate does not support the administration’s plan to change finals and called it “diluting academic standards” in the resolution. The plan includes turning final essays into multiple-choice tests, shortening long essay finals, or hiring non-GTF graduate students, officers of administration or even upper-level undergraduates.
– University Senate doesn’t appreciate the UO administration sending the plans to department heads instead of discussing the plans with the senate. University Senate wants to instead work with the university and come up with a solution together.
Originally, the plans were sent out with a stamp of ‘confidential,’ which the faculty pointed to as an attempt to hide the plans from them in the resolution. Barbara Altmann, senior vice-provost of Academic Affairs, denied this. Altmann said the watermark was “vestigial,” and that the university knew emails would be shared and faculty would learn of the plans.
Altmann says she and Blandy marked the plan as confidential, and only addressed it to deans and directors – not department heads, not faculty – because they knew that meant they’d get a lot of attention and feedback from the faculty. And these people wonder why no one trusts them?
GTF Union updates:
GTFF responds to today’s flex-time proposal from the administration here, and officially calls the strike for Dec 2nd, press release here.
Senate Meeting Highlights:
1) UO will dump Blackboard course management software for Canvas. Live Spring 2015. Yea!
2) Lillis speaks, answers questions. Very honest about UO’s situation and in the Q&A. (See below.) He wants administration and faculty to cooperate more to help UO. But will the Johnson Hall administration step up to the plate? Their refusal to work with the faculty on how to deal with the GTF bargaining and strike planning is not encouraging.
3) Opposition to administration’s efforts to dilute and degrade academic standards in the event of a GTF strike. AKA “educational malpractice”: dropping essay exams, canceling classes, having students watch videos, etc. Blandy: Tries to cover his butt, it’s all about protecting our undergraduates. Altmann: THe confidential stamp was there to attract more interest for what was an initial draft. We knew it would get leaked in 30 minutes to UO Matters (WTF? It wasn’t stamped “draft”, it was stamped “confidential“. And it took me days to get it. Embarrassing. And Altmann just can’t keep from digging that credibility hole deeper and deeper.) Dreiling: Sometimes good people make bad decisions. This secret memo was a bad decision. Just Settle. Lots more discussion, Coltrane gives a weak defense of how he’s handled the situation, gets called out on mis-statements by many in the room. One speaker gives HLGR’s $300-an-hour lawyers a special mention for abusing and insulting our grad students, during the year of botched negotiations that led UO to this point.
Legislation passes unanimously almost unanimously (25 to3?) at 5:10, Senate then adjourns. How’s that for Senate action to help UO improve its research standing, by making clear we stand behind our grad students? Now it’s the administration’s turn to show they can work together on this important goal.
Packed room. I’ll try and live-blog a little. No promises, check the livestream link. Usual disclaimer: nothing is a quote unless in quotes.
11/20/2014 update: The Chronicle has the story here.
Increased UC tuition and CA living costs will make UO more attractive for Californians. Couple this with the flat or declining Eugene rental rates, driven by the recent boom in city subsidized student apartment buildings and UO will be able to increase out-of-state tuition substantially. And, as explained below, this (and Connie Ballmer’s recent $25M donation for Pathways) will allow UO to increase the “discount rate” it offers to low SES and high ability students.
12/6/2014: UO’s efforts at (price) discrimination praised by Secretary of Education Arne Duncan
Break out your hats and mark the day. On November 21st 2011, three years and four presidents ago, OUS Chancellor George Pernsteiner and Board Chair Matt Donegan came down to UO with their ultimatum demanding Lariviere resign for trying to implement his plan to bring faculty pay to the AAU averages, and trying…
That would be the President of the University of Michigan: Speaking to the University of Michigan faculty senate last week, Mark Schlissel, the university’s president, was candid in his assessment of the admissions process for athletes. “We admit students who aren’t as qualified,” he said. “And it’s probably the kids that we…
In brief: It’s as if the US Census refused to break out population data by state. I’m not sure this AAU survey would be fundable through the NSF or NIH given its restrictions on sharing the data.
11/19/2014 update: Coltrane consults Freyd on AAU survey
Francesco Fontana has the report in the Emerald, here:
Interim president Scott Coltrane released the following statement regarding the survey.
“The fact that the AAU is proposing member institutions participate brings a great deal of credibility to the survey,” Coltrane said. “However, Jennifer Freyd also has a great deal of credibility with the university, and her expertise is important to consider. We will need to spend some time weighing the pros and cons before determining what is in the best interest of the university as we work to address this critical issue.”
11/18/2014 update: UO should ignore AAU’s anti-science effort to control rape survey biz
Chronicle and Huffington Post report criticisms of AAU:
From UO’s own increasingly transparent and subversive Institutional Research website, here: As one admittedly extreme example of our top end bloat problem, look at provosts. Last year UC-Berkeley was paying Provost George Breslauer $322K (now retired). He had seven years experience in that job, and a budget of about $2.5B.…
11/17/2014 update: That would be President Ed Ray of Oregon State: I am sure that many of you have read the article just published on OregonLive and being published in three segments this week in The Oregonian regarding the horrific assault suffered by Brenda Tracy in 1998 at the hands of…
Breaking news from “Around the O”: UO Foundation leaders held a press conference in front of the gas fireplace in their new $25M offices, to announce that a generous $1M alumni donation would fund an endowment to buy every PLC faculty member one pair of long-johns each winter, “in perpetuity, or until the next…
11/17/2014: Today, 4PM in the Alumni Center. Deputy Chief Strategic Communicator Tobin Klinger has the report here.
11/14/2014 update: Strategic Communicator Tim Clevenger fiddles with the brand, as grad students burn away
Job #1 was keeping us in the AAU by boosting research and grad student enrollment. But UO’s IR office reports that grad student enrollment has dropped yet again: down 100 just this year:
That would be the University of Wisconsin, here.