UO Matters

Of course not, this is for the football coach:

I’m sure Duck Faculty Athletic Reps Tim Gleason and Josh Gordon will have a complete explanation for Pres Schill’s Intercollegiate Athletics Advisory Committee.

73% of Cristobal’s players graduate within 6 years, 20% of Altman’s do. Many problems with this metric, but why is UO at the bottom?

From Jon Wilner’s PAC-12 news:

— The scores listed here are the most-recent four-year averages, covering athletes who entered school from 2011-14.

Football

Stanford: 93
Utah: 90
Arizona State: 86
Washington: 85
Washington State: 85
Cal: 84
Oregon State: 82
USC: 81
Colorado: 77
Arizona: 73
Oregon: 73
UCLA: 71

Basketball

Arizona State: 100
Cal: 100
Stanford: 100
USC: 100
Utah: 100
Washington State: 100
Colorado: 92
Washington: 75
Oregon State: 67
Arizona: 60
UCLA: 55
Oregon: 20

Unsurprising news from Runners World. Thanks to a regular correspondent for forwarding the link.

A grand jury has subpoenaed records and contracts dating back to 2012.

As part of a criminal investigation, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia has asked for documents detailing the financial relationship between USA Track & Field (USATF), the governing body for the sport of running in the United States, and Nike, its largest sponsor.

Runner’s World has learned that a grand jury subpoena requested documents pertaining to USATF and its board of directors and three businesses: Nike; Matchbook Creative, a marketing firm in Indianapolis that counts USATF as one of its clients; and Bevilacqua Helfant Ventures LLC, a media and commercial rights advisory firm in New York. …

Everything important has been done or will be done in secret. Two days of meetings and the only vote is a pro-forma one on some Ed School MS/certificate program. No way this in-person meeting is worth even an epsilon chance of the Omicron, but it will be online if you just like to watch:

Wednesday, December 1st, 2021, at 9:00 a.m. Pacific Time
Thursday, December 2nd, 2021 at 9:30 a.m. Pacific Time

Meeting of the Board — December 1-2, 2021

[Meeting Materials] [Livestream-December 1] [Livestream-December 2]

Just kidding, of course he didn’t. But OSU’s General Counsel did, in admirable detail:

On November 21st 2011, 10 years 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 100% of AAU averages and trying to set up an independent UO Board. Lariviere refused to leave so they fired him, on instructions from Governor Kitzhaber. Nigel Jaquiss broke the news on the 22nd. OK, so I’m a few days behind, sorry.

In the aftermath Phil Knight, Chuck Lillis, Pat Kilkenny, Tim Boyle and others set up a PAC that convinced the legislature to let them convert UO into their own semi-private university with themselves or their allies as trustees. The implied tit-for-tat was a $2B(?) donation from Knight to advance the universities public mission. The implied threat was to use the PAC’s $350K to elect different legislators.

So how is our Board of Trustees doing?

Their most visible achievements have been an ever-expanding set of athletic egofices – including one that probably should not be discussed on a family friendly holiday – and a new academic emphasis on bioengineering. Important, but literally peripheral to the rest of the university. There are also a lot of new dorms – paid for by students through increased housing costs.

Meanwhile, tuition costs for Oregonians have increased by about 18% (relative to 2012, CPI adjusted.) Out of state tuition is up by 11% (also real).

Since 2012 resident undergrad enrollment is down from 12,116 to 10,314. Non-resident undergrads are down from 8,713 to 8,290.

In 2011, before the raises that lead to Lariviere’s firing, faculty pay was at 85% of the average for AAU public universities. It peaked in fall 2014 at 94%, and has since fallen to 90% (as of last year). Data here.

So if you’re an Oregon resident with an interest in public higher education, I don’t see much to thank our Trustees for. If you’re faculty, we gained a little in the years after (with help from the union) but are far from Lariviere’s 100% of AAU goal, and have been falling recently.

On the other hand if you share our trustees love of big-time college sports these are happy times!

Phil Knight said it best:

“It deeply saddens me that some people in power in our state continue to drive Oregon into a death spiral with their embrace of mediocrity. It’s yet another application of Oregon’s Assisted Suicide law.”

A week later the UO faculty, alumni, boosters, and even a few JH administrators united in protest, hired buses, and went to the board meeting in Portland to protest, with no effect:

Thanks to several members of Pres Schill’s Intercollegiate Athletics Advisory Committee for forwarding this secret memo, along with the email from “Faculty” Athletics Rep Tim Gleason, below. NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION:

From: Tim Gleason 
Sent: Monday, November 22, 2021 10:49 AM
To: Kristyn Elton <kristyne@uoregon.edu>; Christopher Minson <minson@uoregon.edu>; tom lininger <lininger@law.uoregon.edu>; Troy Elias <telias@uoregon.edu>; Anne ‘Michelle’ Wood <miche@uoregon.edu>; Katy Lenn <klenn@uoregon.edu>; Anita Weiss <aweiss@uoregon.edu>; Joshua Gordon <jgordon9@uoregon.edu>; Kylie Robinson <krobins2@uoregon.edu>; Jack Scanlon <jscanlon@uoregon.edu>; Stephanie Prentiss <Prentiss@uoregon.edu>; Roger Thompson <rjt@uoregon.edu>; Kimberly Johnson <johnskim@uoregon.edu>; Stephen Stolp <stolp@uoregon.edu>; Rob Mullens <mullens@uoregon.edu>; Lisa Peterson <lpete@uoregon.edu>
Cc: Ceara Wilson <cearaw@uoregon.edu>; Ellen Laing <ellenl@uoregon.edu>; Lauren Crockett <lcrocket@uoregon.edu>
Subject: Re: Urgent IAAC meeting

IAAC members,

Attached is the draft Alston policy that we will discuss tomorrow at 11:00 am. Please note that this is a draft and it should not be distributed beyond the IAAC. Thanks for finding time for this meeting.

Tim

Tim Gleason

Professor of Journalism

Faculty Athletics Representative

Coordinator, SOJC Hall of Achievement & Eric Allen Award

School of Journalism and Communication

University of Oregon

Eugene, OR 97403-1275

tgleason@uoregon.edu

timgleasonuo@gmail.com

541-346-3739 (office)

541-914-0739 (cell)

541-346-0682 (fax)

Whoops, the real session is on zoom here.

It may be a while before the Johnson Hall team screws up the courage to bring its shit raise real dollar salary cut proposals to the table, but meanwhile:

UA’s Bargaining Team plans to present a counter on Internal Governance and new proposals on Fringe Benefits, Hiring Information, and Home Campus.

Winter Schedule: Beginning January, we will meet twice a month, likely in person (with either very large room capacity or a Zoom stream, so members can watch). Additional details will be shared as soon as possible.

Ignoring the deans, of course. The search will be run by Isaacson Miller, the same incompetents who brought Rahmat Shoureshi to PSU. The committee in full, from OSU’s search website:

• Julie Manning, member of the Board of Trustees, committee chair.
• Patty Bedient, member of the Board of Trustees.
• Julia Brim-Edwards, member of the Board of Trustees.
• Maria Chávez-Haroldson, member of the Board of Trustees.
• Bob Cowen, director of the Hatfield Marine Science Center; professor in the College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences.
• Marissa Cuno, accountant in the Health Sciences Business Center, classified staff representative.
• Taha Elwefati, student of social sciences; president of the Associated Students of the Cascades Campus.
• Lauren Gwin, associate professor in the Department of Crop & Soil Science; associate director of OSU’s Center for Small Farms & Community Food Systems; community food systems specialist for OSU Extension.
• Kim Kirkland, executive director for the Office of Equal Opportunity and Access.
• Kate MacTavish, associate professor in the Department of Human Development and Family Sciences in the College of Public Health and Human Sciences.
• Erika McCalpine, Faculty Senate president-elect; OSU-Cascades executive director of strategic diversity initiatives; director, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Laboratory; instructor, business administration.
• Maija Pham, student of radiation health physics.
• Alan Sams, dean of the College of Agricultural Sciences; director of the Oregon Agricultural Experiment Station.
• Michael Schill, president of the University of Oregon.
• Eric Schoenstein, board chair of the Oregon State University Foundation.
• Scott Vignos, interim vice president and chief diversity officer.
• Virginia Weis, university distinguished professor of integrative biology.
• Member from the broader community, to be announced.

Jackie Bangs, interim board secretary of the OSU Board of Trustees, and Gigi Bruce, chief assistant to the provost, will provide staff support for the search committee.

A separate presidential search firm selection committee was convened to recommend an executive search firm to assist the board’s recruitment and review of candidates for president. The committee was chaired by Trustee Preston Pulliams. Pulliams is the president of Gold Hill Associates, a community college president search firm. After considering written materials submitted in response to a public request for proposals, the committee interviewed search firms and conducted reference checks on the finalists. In mid-November, the committee unanimously recommended use of the firm Isaacson, Miller, and the board chair approved this recommendation.

They’re going to have to stop calling it the dismal science. Today’s release is at https://www.oregon.gov/das/OEA/Pages/forecastecorev.aspx

Given this on top of all the other good news about UO’s out-of-state enrollment, CARES funds, and cost savings from the hiring freeze etc., it will be fun listening to Pres Schill at today’s Senate meeting (3PM on zoom here) attempting to explain why UO can’t afford to give employees raises that make up for inflation and our falling position relative to the AAU peers.

Revenue Summary

Oregon’s primary sources of state tax revenues continue to outstrip expectations. Since the September forecast
was released, daily collection records have been set for both personal income tax withholdings and corporate
tax collections. In addition, Lottery sales continue to set records for this time of year.

Recent forecasts have called for tax collections to return to earth. Federal aid has expired, and economic activity
is beginning to return to normal with workers reentering the labor force, returning to offices and spending more
on services. Instead of normalizing, however, revenue growth has accelerated further. …

Not sure why or to where. No longer on the Org Chart. Had been expected to replace Brad Shelton.

Carmichael rescued a dysfunctional UOPD – remember the Bowl of Dicks? – and increased police spending by millions in the process:

Around the 0 has a press release here. His interim replacement will be Jason Wade, who I’ve heard good things about.

But will Uncle Phil and Tim Boyle set up another PAC to bully the legislature from doing it anyway? Daily Emerald reporter Will Cozine has the interview here:

When asked about recent calls from activist groups — like Democratize UO — to democratize the board, Lillis said the university’s growth since the BOT was created is proof that reform is unnecessary.

“I have confidence that our students, campus community and public at large have benefited significantly since the board was created by state legislation in 2014,” Lillis said.

whilst OSU is up and PSU and TRU’s are way down. Last year VPFA Moffitt was predicting that the 2020 freshman bust would keep down overall enrollment for years, when the administration was pushing for the wage freeze and potential PPR cuts. Actually it only took one year to recover.

Good news as UO starts bargaining over faculty raises. I bet the OSU faculty are kicking themselves for accepting 3%/3%/3% before their enrollment numbers came out.

From Meerah Powell at OPB:

Dear CAS faculty, staff, and GEs,

As you know, the faculty and students in the College of Arts and Sciences engage in important and innovative research, often supported by external grants. We want to share this report on external funding members of our college have secured (and the research projects they support) over the past two years (AY2019-20 and AY2020-21) – two record-breaking years that highlight these important contributions by our College’s faculty to the University of Oregon.

The College brought in more than $75 million per year during this time, with funding coming from the National Institutes of Health, the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Science Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and a host of other agencies and foundations.

We are proud of the scope and depth of our sponsored research, which is spread across all three divisions of CAS (humanities, natural sciences, and social sciences), and features work ranging from the environment to social issues to cancer research to linguistics and literature. The report not only provides basic information on all external awards received, but also highlights some examples of this work that makes a difference in the lives of our community and beyond.

We are proud of all the work CAS faculty, staff, and students have done in securing grants, conducting research, and providing opportunities that create a pathway to success for our students. Thank you for all you do for our College. Please don’t hesitate to share this information about this influential work with others. Take care.

Bruce

Bruce Blonigen

Tykeson Dean