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Posts published in “Uncategorized”

Connie and Steve Ballmer donate $50M to UO for academics and branding

“Around the 0” has the good news, here. Money for low-SES student scholarships, research, and $5M in spare change for UO’s branding team. Enrollments and GPA dipped this year – small but terrifying. Maybe this will help move the UO brand away from big-time sports insanity, towards something more academic,…

University in Oregon works cooperatively with police to end sexual violence

11/12/2014 update: No, of course I’m not talking about UO. The UO administration wouldn’t even share the Eugene Police investigation of the basketball rape allegations with it’s own UO Police. I’m talking about Southern Oregon University in Ashland. New York Magazine has the very powerful story by Katie Van Syckle, here:…

GTFF strike rally 11:30 Wed, at Johnson Hall Admin building

Update: UO’s undergrad student government supports the grad students. In the Emerald:

Given this history, we were deeply disappointed to see that university administration is not interested in similarly striving to meet the needs of our GTFs. The paltry offers handed down to our GTFs have been thoroughly insufficient. Although it has been suggested that there are simply not enough funds, in the wake of former President Gottfredson’s million-dollar severance package, those words ring hollow. To state that this university does not have the funds to provide paid medical and parental leave to its GTFs is utterly unacceptable and suggests that there is a dire need to reassess our university’s priorities.

And what are those UO’s priorities? Dave Hubin’s Public Records Office is doing its best to stall release of the new data until after the mediation sessions with the GTFF later this week, but judging from last year’s numbers, lining the pockets of the Johnson Hall administration seems to be job #1:

11/11/2014:

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The UO administration’s rather pandering response is below the break. I’m guessing the upcoming mediation session the email mentions is the reason the Public Records Office is hiding the contracts showing current pay for top Johnson Hall administrators.

Hubin wants $475 to release Shelton and Moffitt’s tuition increase docs

UO’s Tuition and Fee Advisory Board has been meeting to develop new tuition and fee proposals to take to the UO Board of Governors (sic) for 2015-16. In March, the UO Board of Trustees relied on the TFAB when making its recommendation on tuition to for 2014-15 to the Oregon legislature, according to…

University pays prof $120K in damages for denying him leadership roles on committees, etc.

11/7/2014: The ACLU has the good news here: Washington State University is paying former journalism professor David Demers $120,000 to drop his five-year-old federal free-speech lawsuit against four WSU administrators. “I am extremely pleased with the settlement,” Demers said. “It sends a strong message to university administrators that those who…

Former UO Provost Linda Brady “retires” after failing to send staff to prison

I spent a lot of time talking to Linda Brady about Charles Martinez’s double dipping, UO’s first 5-year diversity plan, and John Moseley’s UO-Bend scheme. Before I met her I assumed top administrators needed to be reasonably smart, competent people. But she was clueless and easily manipulated, which was presumably…

Trustees to appoint Duck Athletic Director Rob Mullens as next UO President

11/6/2014: Trustees to appoint Duck Athletic Director Rob Mullens as next UO President

Diane Dietz has the story in the RG, here. I know I’ve written a few unkind words about Dr. Mullens in the past, but let me be the first to say that I believe he has the necessary fundraising connections, and an unusually creative mind when it comes to finances and academic matters.

11/3/2013 Update: UO Trustees ask The People’s help in choosing next Great Leader

Sac State stalls release of Jim Bean’s second consulting contracts

11/6/2014 update: What a surprise. Jim Bean’s got *two* consulting gigs to top off his UO salary. And the Sacramento State University Counsel, Jill Peterson, is trying to use $2.20 in fees to delay the release of documents on Bean’s contract there. Must be some good stuff in those docs:

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10/26/2014: Jim Bean takes 2 days a week off from teaching for consulting work

Matthew Kish on UO’s $2B fund drive

I’ve got a bunch of new data on the UO Foundation from various sources, but haven’t had time to put it together. Fortunately Matthew Kish of the Portland Business Journal is on it, with several recent stories: http://www.bizjournals.com/portland/print-edition/2014/10/31/cover-story-can-2b-help-uo-take-flight.html http://www.bizjournals.com/portland/blog/2014/11/woeful-endowments-oregon-universities.html

How much has UO spent on lawyers to fight our grad students?

12/6/2014 update: New reports on legal and consulting expenses, here. Some to HLGR for GTFF bargaining, some for the UOPD union, some for things JH really doesn’t want to attach an accounting code to:

Legal:

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Consulting:

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11/6/2014 update: I don’t know, I’m crowd-sourcing this one:

In response to questions about the total cost of the hiring HLGR for the GTFF bargaining, here are links to some public records on legal (and consulting) expenses. File dates are approximate and a mix of xls and the badly scanned pdfs Dave Hubin’s public records office sends out to make life harder, but I think I’ve got complete coverage from 2011 to the end of October. If someone wants to put together a spreadsheet for just the GTFF costs please email me a copy and I’ll post it.

2011-2013 legal billing

2013 – June 2014 legal

1/1/2013-9/15/2014 consulting and 6/1/2014-9/18/2014 legal

Sept and October 2014 legal and consulting.

(new) October 2014 legal and consulting.

(link fixed)
Here’s a sample of a detailed HLGR invoice from the faculty union bargaining, after redactions by our General Counsel’s office:

I’ve made a PR request for the September 2014 invoices, which should show more about what Rudnick, Matthews, and Grado are doing to justify the astonishingly expensive GTFF bargaining:

Subject: Re: Public Records Request 2015-PRR-092
Date: November 5, 2014 at 4:48:17 PM PST
Cc: doug park
To: Lisa Thornton

Dear Ms Thornton –

Thanks for these accounting reports.

This is a public records request for the six detailed HLGR invoices with transactions dates of 24-Sep-14.

I ask for a fee waiver on the basis of public interest. Because of the timeliness of issues around HLGR’s work for UO on GTFF bargaining and other issues, I would appreciate it you could expedite this request.

I’m ccing Doug Park on this request as his office has these documents and can easily make them available.

Thanks,

Bill Harbaugh
UO Prof of Economics
http://harbaugh.org

11/5/2014: Coltrane still letting Frohnmayer’s HLGR firm rake in the billable hours

It took another petition to the Lane County DA, but at least Doug Park didn’t accuse me of harassment this time. here are the latest HLGR billing numbers. Presumably UO was sitting on these because they didn’t want the grad students to know how much Coltrane was willing to pay noted tobacco company lawyer Sharon Rudnick and Jeff Matthews to bargain against them:

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Of course some of those invoices are probably for other things, like negotiating Gottfredson’s buyout, or perhaps for dealing with the rape allegation cover-up. And here are the consulting payments – looks like Huron is back:

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9/26/2014: Has Coltrane fired Sharon Rudnick and Frohnmayer’s HLGR law firm?