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Bob Berdahl grills Gottfredson over Duck rape allegation cover-up

Jennifer Winters has the hard hitting investigative story in “Around the O, here. Just kidding, Ms Winters is one of Gottfredson’s many paid PR flacks, and her report is just what you’d expect. Gottfredson’s (renamed) “Presidential Review Panel” had secret meetings Wednesday and Thursday. According to the post on his website, Gottfredson…

Ben Franklin and Ted Wheeler: “An investment in knowledge pays the best interest”

Benjamin Franklin was a failure as an apprentice chandler. He almost died as a runaway from his second apprenticeship, as a printer. Eventually he figured out what to do with his life. In the end he donated L1,000 in his will to start a revolving fund to lend money to Boston…

UO General Counsel’s office loses another one

7/29/2014: Johnson Hall sure is hard on lawyers. In 2010 President Lariviere fired GC Melinda Grier for hiding public records about Mike Bellotti’s contract, then appointed her assistant Randy Geller after what mounted to a failed search for a replacement. (It appears Gottfredson has rehired Grier on the side though). In 2013 Assistant GC Paul Kaufmann left without explanation,…

UO communicators try to hide Gottfredson’s calamitous fundraising collapse

Chuck Lillis, the Chairman of UO’s new Board of Trustees, wants to raise $2 to $3 billion to get UO back on the AAU track. Gottfredson is not delivering. The word is his style does not go over any better with alumni than it does with students and faculty. Now UO’s strategic communicators…

Gottfredson extends union benefits to OAs, but not to GTFs.

After paying noted tobacco company attorney Sharon Rudnick and her friends $1M to unsuccessfully argue “The University” couldn’t afford to give these benefits to faculty union members, Gottfredson now wants credit for giving them to the non-unionized faculty and the OAs too. His email manages to try this without once…

Dash Paulson reports on Senate Task Force on Sexual Violence meeting

UO Matters: Because of the importance of Thursday’s July 24th meeting of the Senate Task force on Sexual Violence to the UO community and beyond, I hired reporter Dash Paulson as a freelancer to cover it. Mr. Paulson wrote several excellent stories as an Emerald reporter, including the first substantive interview with President Gottfredson, in January 2013, here, and he previously reported for UO Matters on the June Trustees meetings, here and here. His summary is below, followed by a detailed report on the meeting. As usual, quotes are in quotes, otherwise it’s the gist of the discussion.

The Task Force’s Official website is here, prior UO Matters posts are here. President Gottfredson’s self-appointed “External Review Panel” is scheduled to meet Wednesday and Thursday, still no word on whether their meetings will be open or closed.

Mr. Paulson’s report:

Last Thursday, the new Task Force to Address Sexual Assault and Survivor Support, created by a motion in the faculty senate, met to elect a chair and clarify the goals and mission of the new group.

Professor Carol Stabile and Randy Sullivan volunteered to co-chair the task force. Stabile wanted to focus on facilitating the task force meetings while Sullivan leads development of a tentative new course to educate students and to some extent UO employees on sexual violence. After unanimously electing Sullivan and Stabile as co-chairs, the group had a lengthy discussion on the charge of the task force. It was widely agreed that the task force should begin by gathering as much information as possible about the UO’s process and policies on sexual assault cases. Task Force members Sandy Weintraub, director of student conduct & community standards, and Renae DeSautel, sexual violence response coordinator, volunteered to give a presentation on the UO’s policy on handling sexual assault incidents. Some members said that the procedure appeared from the outside to be “broken” in light of the March 8th incident of alleged sexual assault, and they felt part of the group’s charge would be to identify problems and recommend improvements.

The group also discussed the upcoming Campus Climate Survey. Stabile said the task force should endorse the University’s proposed survey along with others, like one conducted by Professor of Psychology, Jennifer Freyd, who has been developing a survey on campus sexual violence for two years.

Several members wanted to understand better what the panel initiated by President Gottfredson will be doing. Senate President Robert Kyr, who called in for the first half hour of the meeting, told the Task Force the President’s Chief of Staff, Gregory Rikhoff, would be contacting them. There was discussion of liaisons between the groups. By the end of the meeting, the task force agreed to meet again in two weeks and in the meantime make contact with other groups on campus that deal with sexual violence. Talking points next time will include the presentation by Weintraub and DeSautel, the role of alcohol in “party culture”, and more about a possible course on the nature of sexual violence.

The full, updated committee membership, which now includes US Attorney for Oregon Amanda Marshall, is on the committee website, here. Senate President Rob Kyr and Andrew Lubash showed up via conference call.

3:06 p.m. Introductions

Lisa Mick Shimizu: Thanks everyone for coming. Welcomes two new members, Andrew Lubash who will join via a conference call and Cheney Ryan (Law). UO Ombudsman Bruce McCalister has also joined the committee, but he’s on a plane at the moment.

3:10 Confirmation of Chair

Did Bob Berdahl double-dip with UO and the AAU?

7/26/2014 update: The scandal about Bob Berdahl’s 2005 UC-Berkeley retirement payoff led to substantial UC-system reforms. Berdahl moved on to the Association of American Universities, at a healthy salary. He retired in June 2011 as AAU president, and in October 2011 The Chronicle of Higher Ed reported that UO President Lariviere had hired Berdahl as a “special advisor”…

Ducks hide infractions, Ole Miss tries to hide emails about athletic tweets

From former UO journalism student CJ Ciaramella’s excellent FOIA newsletter: ‘The 31 suspicious emails buried by Ole Miss.’ Another case of FERPA abuse. New York Times appeals University of Oregon redactions in sexual assault case involving UO basketball players Meanwhile Dave Hubin’s UO Public Records is still stalling the release…

Latest doings of the NCAA cartel

Here’s an interesting speech from the NCAA Big 12 Commissioner Bob Bowlsby [sic]: http://newsok.com/bowlsby-gets-serious-with-cheating-pays-pronouncement/article/5011747 “Enforcement is broken,” said Bowlsby, one of the most respected men in collegiate sports. “The infractions committee hasn’t had a hearing in almost a year, and I think it’s not an understatement to say that cheating pays…