UO Matters

The latest on the meltdown of UO’s leadership, from the Eugene Weekly. This is about the Dean who accused a sophomore of harassment, over an art project. Five months later UO’s investigation concludes:

“Taken as a whole, the information gathered in the investigation is such that no reasonable decision maker could find that Respondent violated the discrimination policy,” the August 27 notice says. “Therefore, at the threshold review, the Complaint is dismissed.”

That’s a pretty high bar. They could have cut Zaretsky a little slack – maybe “no more than 5% of reasonable decision makers …”.

But they went with zero. Nada. Zilch.

Which doesn’t stop Zaretsky from laying down a marker for anyone – e.g. UO President Karl Scholz – who might think about giving her some quiet time to work on her scholarship:

“Time will tell whether the debilitating coordinated and extensive campuswide antisemitic harassment, intimidation and threats I and other members of the Jewish campus community have endured for 22 months, continue this next academic year.”

Then to top it off we’ve got UO’s lawyer begging the student not to exercise their First Amendment rights or UO’s policy on academic freedom to talk to the press, lest Dean Zaretsky comes back with another expensive complaint:

On August 27, Nicole Commissiong, the UO’s chief civil rights officer and Title IX coordinator, told Steuerwald to “please be aware that the disclosure of the outcome of the investigation to third parties could result in harassment towards the complainant, as the complainant’s name [Which, for the record, is Adrian Parr Zaretsky: UOM] was previously disclosed in violation of the expectations for the investigation.”

You gotta love that “please”.

The Northwestern University board will sleep well, knowing that a longer fight would have been even worse for their university. Schill will get a buyout and a year sabbatical to look for another job, with a tenured law prof sinecure for backup, easing their consciences still more. Trump and his…

From the Trustees meeting on 8/27/2025:

Q for ChatGPT: Is the Provost really blaming the angst on the leaks, and not the fact people will lose their jobs?

Yes — that’s a very sharp read of Provost Long’s framing.

In the transcript, he explicitly acknowledges that anxiety and frustration are rising because preliminary information about possible budget reductions has surfaced publicly — and he even emphasizes that some of that information is incorrect. He then says this is the “price of leading a budget reduction process that is attempting to be consultative in a meaningful way.”

So the proximate cause he names is leaks / premature information sharing, not the actual substance of the cuts (loss of jobs, departments, or programs).

Of course, the underlying angst is clearly from the looming layoffs, program closures, and faculty uncertainty — but his rhetoric suggests he’s positioning the manner of communication (open, consultative, but leaky) as the trigger for community distress, rather than the core fact of layoffs and structural reductions.

That’s a pretty common administrative strategy:

• • Frame unrest as a communications problem, not a substantive policy problem.

  • Suggest that once the “final decisions” are made (in two weeks, per his remarks), the confusion and anger will settle.

Those are the numbers from UO’s official IR page here, from 2017 to 2024. They’ve removed the earlier data they used to show, sorry. Measured in Full Time Equivalents (FTE):

OA’s: 257 new FTE from a base of 1396.

TTF: 13 new FTE from a base of 740.

No mystery to this – the President decides where to spend the budget and while OA’s make the job easier for him and his pals, tenured profs just make trouble.

(FWIW over this same period classified FTE is up by 18%, career faculty are up 12%, pro-tems are way up from a small base, student headcounts are down then up and end pretty flat. Top admin positions went from 29 to 31.)

Dear CAS colleagues,

As President Scholz and Provost Long indicated in their memo yesterday, UO schools and colleges are in the process of finalizing their FY26 budget reduction plans. These reductions are part of a coordinated, university-wide effort to ensure the university’s long-term financial stability and reduce a $25-$30 million structural budget deficit that requires immediate action.
In CAS, we have been working for some time to bring our costs in line with the budget allocated by the university. As you know, meeting lower budgets in FY25 and FY26 has already required the college to take some incredibly difficult actions. Last spring, we made the painful choice to lay off 42 staff, instructional faculty, and student workers. We also canceled six tenure-track searches, paused all non-critical staff hiring, eliminated several unfilled positions, and reduced spending wherever possible.

Even with these actions, further reductions are required for FY26, amounting to approximately $5.3 million. Because 97% of our budget is comprised of labor costs, these next steps will include eliminating positions, including tenure and non-tenure track faculty positions, and reducing and/or closing some departments and programs.

In planning for these further reductions, we have sought to minimize the impact on students and our academic mission, while recognizing that any cuts can be harmful. We are now engaging department heads and other leaders from across the college and university to discuss proposed plans and to gather feedback before finalizing our recommendations. These conversations have been hard for everyone involved, and I am grateful to those who participated for their professionalism, empathy, and thoughtfulness.

Between now and the end of August, we will continue to work with department leadership to submit our final recommendations to the Provost for approval. Impacted employees and departments will be notified of final decisions the week of September 8, 2025. That same week, we will also share budget reduction decisions with CAS employees, along with an FAQ document.
We recognize the stress and uncertainty these necessary budget cuts are creating in CAS and across campus. Losing colleagues and long-standing academic programs is deeply painful for us all. At the same time, we can take solace in all the good work that continues to happen in CAS along with our unwavering commitment to students.

Thank you for your understanding and patience as we navigate these challenging circumstances together.

Sincerely,
Chris

Chris J. Poulsen
Tykeson Dean of Arts and Sciences
Professor of Earth Sciences
College of Arts and Sciences | University of Oregon
1030 E. 13th Avenue | Eugene, OR | 97403
Pronouns: he/his​

Those are the rumors. The union’s message is here. Here’s all Scholz is willing to say publicly:

Dear colleagues,

At the end of last academic year, we promised to continue to communicate with you about the budget process and the work being done to redress our structural budget deficit. Since our town hall last spring, administrative leaders have been working to identify reduction plans in line with meeting a 4 percent average reduction target for administrative units. The deans, in consultation with the Office of the Provost, have similarly been identifying reductions in the schools and colleges to reach 2.5 percent average reductions. All units, administrative and academic, have also been asked to eliminate any pre-existing budget deficits and to fully implement balanced budgets by FY2027. Some units have taken important steps in closing deficits over the summer.

While there remains much to be done before we announce specific actions, we want to provide a timeline and the process by which we will resolve the structural gap in our finances.

Here is the planned sequence of events for the coming weeks:

• August 11-29: Deans and Vice Presidents provided recommendations to the president and provost for consideration. Appropriate steps that align with institutional guidelines and procedures will conclude before Labor Day. This will allow for those directly affected to be informed as soon as possible. Please note that the School of Law, which operates on a semester system, is following an earlier timeline.
• Week of September 7: Another message will be sent to the campus community outlining specific plans of action. Employees affected directly by the budget reductions will be notified of their job status.

Sincerely,

Karl Scholz
President

Christopher P. Long
Provost and Senior Vice President