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Posts tagged as “Scott Coltrane”

Provost Search Committee named

Recent Provosts: John Moseley Linda Brady Jim Bean (Interim) Lorraine Davis (Interim) Scott Coltrane Frances Bronet (Interim) Scott Coltrane (Interim) Search Committee announcement: Provost and Senior Vice President Search The University of Oregon is embarking on a crucial leadership recruitment effort: the selection of a new Provost and Senior Vice…

Provost Scott Coltrane to retire 7/1/2017, Geri Richmond to lead search

Coltrane recently gave business school dean Kees de Kluyver a remarkably generous golden parachute – 1/2 a Gottfredson, more or less. Will that now be the precedent for Coltrane? Presumably he’ll get a well earned sabbatical year – but at his professor’s salary, or his provost’s salary? The difference is enough to fund a…

UO hires Sharon Rudnick & Jeff Matthews to negotiate new GTF contract

Just kidding. I have no reason to think that noted big-tobacco lawyer Sharon Rudnick or her HLGR partner and zoning variance expert Jeff Matthews will ever again work for UO. And, in my opinion, the rumors that FAR Tim Gleason will be on the admin team are clearly anti-university. But negotiations between the administration and the GTFF…

Civil rights historian Taylor Branch lectures Scott Coltrane about NCAA cartel

4/16/2015 PM: I didn’t see our Faculty Athletics Representatives Jim O’Fallon or Tim Gleason or PAGIA Chair Kim Sheehan in the audience – there were a lot of empty reserved seats – but Interim President Scott Coltrane got quite the lecture tonight from Taylor Branch about civil rights, college sports…

Coltrane’s “Campus Conversation” on sexual violence prevention fails

3/2/2015: Campus Conversation” on rape response, 4PM today, Alumni Center.

I couldn’t make this, but the word from others is that this was a massive fail, with Coltrane getting called out repeatedly by the students for his lack of progress and efforts to pass off the blame.

2/27/2015: How much is the athletic budget contributing towards Miller Nash’s legal fees for defending basketball coach Dana Altman? Anything? I don’t know. Let’s find out:

On Friday Feb 27, 2015

Dear Ms Thornton –

This is a public records request for documents showing how much UO is paying the Miller Nash attorneys who are defending UO and Dana Altman against the lawsuit from the survivor of the alleged basketball gang rape.

Specifically, I am requesting documents showing how much has been spent so far, and how much of that has been paid for by general academic funds, athletic department funds, and other sources such as insurance, UO Foundation money, etc.

I ask for a fee waiver on the basis of public interest.

2/26/2015, 4:20PM: UO drops counter-claim, but still blames survivor for “damage to a good man’s reputation”, and claims *she* is discouraging rape reporting.

This is a first for Johnson Hall: admitting a mistake. It took “Sven Praoc” and 2100 petition signers to get them to do the right thing.

No news on when Coltrane will apologize for his prejudicial allegation of an “unlawful release” of UO Presidential Archives. Baby steps.

Josephine Woolington has the story in the RG, here. It appears Coltrane got some lousy legal advice, either from UO attorneys Doug Park and Sam Hill, or UO’s hired Miller Nash attorneys, Michelle Smigel http://www.millernash.com/michelle-smigel/ and Michael Porter http://www.millernash.com/michael-porter/:

Coltrane, however, criticized the online petition that characterized the UO as having filed a lawsuit against the victim, as opposed to responding to a lawsuit. He said he was advised by attorneys that it’s routine to counter a suit.

“Their suit would have us pay legal fees, and I was told it’s typical when you respond” to also file a counterclaim, he said.

…  The UO’s updated response, however, still contends that Jane Doe’s attorneys “filed a lawsuit with unfounded allegations that damage a good man’s (Altman’s) reputation in an attempt to curry favor and gain traction in the media and create pressure for a public university to pay a hefty sum to (Jane Doe) even though it has done nothing wrong.”

The university argues that Jane Doe’s allegations threaten not only the UO and Altman, “but all sexual assault survivors in Oregon’s campus community.

“The publication of false allegations about Oregon’s handling of a report of an alleged sexual assault creates a very real risk that other survivors will wrongly be discouraged from reporting sexual assault and sexual harassment to Oregon,” which conflicts with the goal of a federal civil rights law, known as Title IX, the response said.

Say what? UO’s revised and sanitized response to the lawsuit is less intimidating to victims who might consider exercising their civil rights than was the previous version, though no less offensive:

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Full docket w/ old and new language here, thanks to recapthelaw.org

UO tells librarians to shush about Presidential Archives records release

1/22/2015 Presidential Archives records release investigation update: FOR INTERNAL-LIBRARY USE ONLY Dear Library staff, faculty, administrators, As you read in President Coltrane’s recent message, we have recently learned that significant numbers of archived records have been released, despite the fact that some of these records contained confidential, private, and sensitive…

Trust breaks down, Coltrane says no hardship fund language in the CBA, GTFF strikes

Update: The Register Guard can’t make sense of Coltrane’s actions either. Story here:

The GTFs went into a last-ditch mediation session with UO officials today with a sense of optimism, [UO biology grad student and bargaining team member Steve McAllister] said.

The dispute had winnowed down to a single issue — the union’s demand for two weeks paid medical and parental leave. University bargainers proposed a way out in the form of creating a $150,000 graduate student hardship fund that students could tap for $1,000 or $1,500 in the case of illness or the birth of a child.

The rub: The university refused to write the specifics of how the hardship fund would operate, including details about eligibility, into the proposed two-year contract, union leaders said. …

The university did not clarify why it doesn’t support detailing the hardship fund operations in the contract for the GTFs, and then administer the fund for those graduate students without fellowships in an identical manner.

The graduate student federation is adamant that the terms belong in a legally enforceable contract, McAllister said.

“What we basically have today is they’ve said, ‘Hey, we’ll do this great program for you’ and we’ve said, ‘Great. Do you promise?’ And they’ve said, ‘Well, no. We don’t.’

Meanwhile, the breakdown in trust in the UO administration has driven another spike in UO Matters readership:

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This is not a healthy situation. The UO administration should be a credible voice on important matters like this. People shouldn’t have to rely on an opinionated blogger like me, who has to pay for UO public records with occasional raids on my scotch budget.

Unfortunately, the millions of dollars that Johnson Hall has poured into PR flacks and “Around the 0”, coupled with the disingenuous and confused email messages on this strike from Scott Coltrane, Frances Bronet, Barbara Altmann and Doug Blandy, and Dave Hubin’s willingness to abuse Oregon’s public records law to hide information, have, in Scott Coltrane’s passive words, meant that “Trust has broken down”. Presumably Coltrane will present a plan for fixing that at Wednesday’s Senate meeting. But will anyone trust him?

12/1/2014 update: Coltrane won’t sign, GTFF will strike, and “Trust has broken down”.

Yeah, maybe your $300-an-hour zoning lawyer can tell you how that happened. Although I think it will be hard to top the explanation your $14,000 a year English composition instructors gave you, now in the Emerald, here.

From: President’s Office Date: Mon, Dec 1, 2014 at 4:52 PM
Subject: Mediation concluded, strike expected

Dear colleagues and students,

It pains me to send this update about the negotiations with the Graduate Teaching Fellows Federation. Mediation has failed and regrettably we are expecting the GTFF to strike beginning tomorrow.

I care deeply about each student and employee here. I have been hopeful every day that this could be avoided. Unfortunately, the bargaining teams met today and could not reach an agreement.

We have been negotiating for a year. The university has moved toward the union proposals at almost every negotiation and mediation. Most labor negotiations include give and take. Today’s offer included a hardship fund that would provide financial support for graduate students in need. Nevertheless the GTFF authorized a strike vote months ago in the spring, and have reiterated that position repeatedly. Trust has broken down and rebuilding that trust will be a priority when this is over.

Tomorrow will be a significant day on campus. It is dead week and academic life will go on even if many of our GTFs strike. We respect each person’s right to choose for him- or herself about whether to participate. It is one of the great things about our country. Please be respectful of one another.

For our students, we have a job to do and serving students is our focus. Final exams will be held and graded, and student grades will be entered. And we will all look forward toward winter term.

Sincerely,

Scott Coltrane
Interim President

11/29/2014 1:11 PM update: GTFF to Bronet: Put sick leave in the CBA, and it’s a deal

The GTFF’s response to the latest proposal from the administration is here. The only remaining sticking point? They want the details in the CBA. I’m no $300-an-hour zoning-easement lawyer, but in economics we teach that this is just the sort of thing that contracts like the CBA are for. Here’s hoping Provost Bronet gives Jeff Matthews appropriate instructions soon:

The GTFF’s executive council voted that they could be willing to accept the fund as an alternative to paid leave. However, to do so, critical language about the fund must be in our collective bargaining agreement (CBA). The GTFF proposed language to do so and was willing to discuss alterations that would work for the Administration. However, the Administration still refused to accept any CBA language to guarantee the rules of how the fund might operate.

Question: Why does it need to be in the CBA?

Creating a CBA is the reason we hold negotiations. It is an enforceable, legally binding agreement between employer (UO) and employees (GTFs). Having a legally binding contract is essential in any agreement, so it can be used for future references and there is something in place in case of anything going wrong between two parties. More information on these types of agreements can be found here. The language that is written into the CBA must be followed by both sides. If either side violates the CBA, formal procedures exist to correct that, including a third-party arbitrator to correct any violations. Working out a deal, without any guarantee of follow through, undermines the intent of the collective bargaining process. Writing new policy for graduate students does not guarantee the needs of its graduate employees are being addressed.

The Administration is unwilling to include any CBA language for the fund other than (1) it exists, (2) there is at least $150,000 in the fund, and (3) GTFs, because they are grad students, can access the fund. So, the only legally binding portion of the fund would be its existence, size, and the fact that GTFs can access it. The rules of the fund, all details about how the fund operates and how grad students can access the fund, are left up to the Administration. That is not good enough.

11/28/2014 1:40 update: Provost Bronet to faculty, students: Shelter in Place until Monday

GTFF rally for 5PM Monday at Johnson Hall draws politicians like … draws …

Update: Looks rainy, but there’s plenty of room inside the lobby, as the UO Coalition discovered last spring.

Coltrane could have settled this a month ago and saved our department heads a lot of time, and the GTFF a lot of megaphone batteries. But no:

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Thanksgiving Day Update: 62-year-old university president fails at ultimatum bargaining with 25-year-old students. His lawyers cash in again.

Bob Berdahl forgave millions in athletic department debts, and tried to hide it. Coltrane?

At Berkeley. Full report from the UC-Berkeley faculty investigators, here. Along with these challenges, Kasser had two more important issues to deal with: the completion of Haas Pavilion and reducing the athletic budget. When Tien stepped down in 1997, the cumulative deficit for the combined programs was over $8 million.…

UO Senate to meet on conduct code, legal services, Transparency Award.

Synopsis: Coltrane looks like he likes the job, and his colleagues. The faculty and staff clearly like Coltrane too. He gave a brief talk, answered questions, easy rapport. What an improvement. (Funny how when Berdahl and Gottfredson kept insisting we were all colleagues it was so plainly manipulative. Coltrane didn’t even…