UO Matters

High praise indeed in the Eugene Weekly, here.

Having had to listen to our smarmy Provost talk and talk through many meetings, I’m willing to bet this is her own creation, not the work of ChatGPT. Presumably she took it straight from the cover letter for her next presidential search application, which we hope will be a successful one.

Dear faculty colleagues,

Central to the University of Oregon’s educational and research mission is our commitment to inclusive excellence. I am writing to provide an update on the Office of the Provost’s recent work to enhance diversity, equity, and inclusion, and to foster a culture of respect in our academic programs and activities.

We are focused on improving our faculty members’ experience at the university by fostering their sense of belonging and engagement.

To this end, many activities are underway and in the planning stages in the provost’s office. These include a project to foster best practices for the post doc to faculty transition and cohort-based community-building led by the Office of the Provost such as new culturally responsive, network-based faculty mentorship programming.

We have also set in motion a four-event series, called Inclusive Excellence in Action. The series kicked off with an Inclusive Teaching launch event on March 3 to celebrate our current inclusive teaching efforts and the launch of new Howard Hughes Medical Institute grant-funded programming to amplify the culture of inclusive teaching. We will host three more events this spring, including one I’d like to highlight here. On April 26, we will host the Faculty Success: Inclusive Recruitment and Retention Summit for faculty and staff which has two goals: (1) to learn about the work being done around inclusive hiring and retention efforts across campus and at the college and school level; and (2) to focus on specific challenges inherent in some aspects of this work and crowd-source strategies for addressing them.

Additionally, and as you are hopefully aware, leadership in each school and college is working through a process for engaging its faculty and staff, at the unit level, around the 2022 climate survey. I have two goals for our deans between now and the end of this academic year: (1) to ensure that everyone has an understanding of their unit’s results in the context of the results at the broader, university-wide level; and (2) to provide you, our faculty, and other employees with the opportunity to engage in meaningful discussion on what points resonate with you and how each of you, as a member of various groups—from your role in your school and college community, to your role in your academic department, as a member of our teaching community, as a scholar and/or member of a research unit—can contribute to shaping what progress toward an improved culture and climate looks like.

All of this aligns with—and some of our future efforts will be informed by—the work of colleagues in the Center on Diversity and Community (CoDaC) who have conducted a deep dive into the experiences of our own faculty of color and researched best practices for the active retention—rather, the proactive retention—of faculty.

I want to take a moment here to extend my sincere thanks to those of you who gave your candid input on such a wide range of crucial topics as part of CoDaC’s effort. We have heard the depth and breadth of the concerns related to equity in service, cultural taxation, and the impact of these on faculty of color. The leaders of this work, Charlotte Moats-Gallagher and Gerard Sandoval, have shared their findings with the President’s senior leadership team, the deans, the University’s Senate Executive Committee and others. We continue to work with the University Senate and its task force focused on the inequitable service burden on many faculty and adjacent work of the climate survey-related working group on faculty promotion, tenure, and service.

I am optimistic that through these and future endeavors, the university is on a path to improving our faculty retention, academic and campus culture, and the experiences of our faculty, as well as our staff and students. I am committed to this work, and I will continue to provide updates on these efforts and what we achieve.

Sincerely,
Janet Woodruff-Borden
Interim Provost and Executive Vice President

I for one salute the Honorable Representative from Clackamas for attempting to holding Rob Mullens and his coaches feet to the fire on what is surely the most egregious problem in college sports. This is just the sort of legislation that restores my faith in the ability of government – with the vital help of properly incentivized big-time college sports coaches, of course – to do what we as parents have failed to do for millennia.

For a more cynical view, see Canzano. From Rep Bynum’s heartfelt testimony:

Chair Lively, vice-chairs McIntire and Ruiz, for the record my name is Janelle Bynum, and I am the State Representative for House District 39.

As a proud football and basketball mom I’ve seen how sports can bring communities together and teach young athletes discipline, comradery, and sacrifice. At times though, the baser instincts of crowds and group think can take over and turn what is a refuge for many of our youth into a hostile and derisive environment. This is especially true in collegiate athletics where fans often fail to realize that the players they are cheering for or jeering against are barely old enough to vote.

House Bill 2472 places responsibility on Universities to develop basic reporting systems and staff training to respond to derogatory and inappropriate behavioral at interscholastic sporting events. The bill does not strive to create a strict regimen to regulate and take the fun out of college sports. Rather, we are setting a bare minimum that universities must comply with to respond to behavior that goes far outside the bounds of reasonable spectatorship.

I’ve sponsored previous legislation requiring Oregon high schools to meet many of the same standards addressed in this bill. While our collegiate sports at times take on the appearance of professionalism with the large stadiums and sponsorships, the fact remains that these athletes are still young developing adolescences. Events such as those that occurred last season at the Oregon vs BYU football game exemplify the type of behavior that creates hostile environments not fit for families hoping to enjoy a weekend day watching their favorite team.

As the proud mother of an Oregon Duck football player, I appreciate how college sports can cultivate great leaders and teach them skills that will serve them for the rest of their lives. However, I’ve also heard horror stories from players, coaches, and staff about out-of-control behavior from student sections and fans that provides nothing productive. Anyone who knows me knows I am a competitive person, but interscholastic competition must contemplate sportsmanship and basic decency. House Bill 2472 places a low bar that universities can easily meet to create a more hospitable sporting atmosphere for fans and athletes, without taking away from the entertainment and traditions of collegiate athletics.

Colleagues, for these reasons I ask you to support House Bill 2472.

https://olis.oregonlegislature.gov/liz/2023R1/Downloads/MeasureDocument/HB2472/Introduced

A BILL FOR AN ACT

Relating to behavior related to interscholastic activities; and declaring an emergency.

Be It Enacted by the People of the State of Oregon:
SECTION 1. (1) A public university listed in ORS 352.002 may participate in interscholastic activities, including but not limited to interscholastic sporting events, only if the public university:

(a) Implements equity focused policies that address the use of derogatory or inappropriate names, insults, verbal assaults, profanity or ridicule that occurs at an interscholastic activity, including by spectators of the interscholastic activity;

(b) Maintains a transparent complaint process that:

(A) Has a reporting system to allow participants of interscholastic activities or members of the public to make complaints about student, coach or spectator behavior;

(B) Responds to a complaint made under subparagraph (A) of this paragraph within 48 hours of the complaint being received; and

(C) Strives to resolve a complaint received under subparagraph (A) of this paragraph within 30 days of the complaint being received;

(c) Develops and implements a system of sanctions against students, coaches and spectators if a complaint made under paragraph (b) of this subsection is verified; and

(d) Performs an annual survey of students to understand and respond to potential violations of equity focused policies adopted under paragraph (a) of this subsection or violations of ORS 659.850.

(2) Each employee of a public university whose official duties relate to the athletics de- partment of the public university must receive formal training regarding the requirements established by subsection (1) of this section.

(3) If a sporting event is hosted by a public university listed in ORS 352.002 and attendees at the sporting event engage in the use of derogatory or inappropriate names, insults, verbal assaults, profanity or ridicule in violation of equity focused policies adopted under subsection (1)(a) of this section, the public university must:

(a) Suspend the athletic director of the public university for at least one week; and

(b) Suspend the head coach of the athletic team of the public university that was participating in the sporting event for at least one week.

(4) A public university that fails to comply with the requirements set forth in subsection (1) of this section, or to meaningfully enforce the requirements set forth in subsection (1) of this section, may not receive public moneys in the form of state grants, state scholarship moneys or support from the Oregon State Police.

SECTION 2. The Higher Education Coordinating Commission shall work with independent universities, the National Collegiate Athletic Association, professional organizations, student organizations, cultural organizations and religious organizations to develop rules for inter- scholastic codes of conduct. To the degree practicable, the commission shall promote the adoption of codes of conduct comparable to the requirements that public universities listed in ORS 352.002 must adopt pursuant to section 1 of this 2023 Act.

SECTION 3. Section 1 of this 2023 Act first applies to the 2023-2024 academic year.

SECTION 4. This 2023 Act being necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health and safety, an emergency is declared to exist, and this 2023 Act takes effect on its passage.

Apparently this is a big deal to those at the ABA charged with educating America’s future lawyers, but I suspect most people will have the same reaction as the TaxProf law blog does: WTF?

At its February 16-17, 2023, meeting, the Council of the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar of the American Bar Association (the “Council”) considered the status of the University of Oregon School of Law of Law (the “Law School”) and concluded that the Law School is not in compliance with Standard 206(b), with respect to part-time or adjunct faculty.ABA Journal, ABA Legal Ed Council Posts Additional Notice on Faculty Diversity:

According to the law school’s Standard 509 Information Report, it has 52 non-full-time faculty; 23 [44.2%] are men, 29 [55.8%] are women, and nine [17.3%] are people of color. Marcilynn A. Burke, the law school’s dean, did not immediately respond to an ABA Journal interview request

At the same February meeting, the Council found Hofstra back in compliance with Standard 206’s faculty diversity standard with 77 non-full-time faculty; 50 (64.9%) are men, 27 (35.1%) are women, and five (6.5%) are people of color.

• Oregon total faculty: 87: 57.5% are women, 17.3% are people of color
• Hofstra total faculty: 128: 37.5% are women, 9.38% are people of color

Pretty balanced and informative, with many interesting quotes:

https://northbynorthwestern.com/sharing-governance/

Please post your favorites in the comments.

Do the math. Faculty are getting 10% in raises over 3 years, during which the cost of living will have increased by roughly 20%. (Ignore former Interim President Phillip’s claim to the Senate that temporary inflation does not cause permanent increases in the cost of living, he’s no more of a macroeconomist than I am.)

To add an obsession with control to the insult and injury, Interim Provost Janet Woodruff-Borden is requiring departments to adopt new and tortured rules before they can allocate the 3% (nominal) merit portion of this pay cut.

From what I can tell the deans, including CAS’s Chris Poulsen, are doing the best they can to deal with this – given their loyalty oath to Johnson Hall. Poulsen’s attempt to explain the new rules to department heads is below. (Thanks to several anonymous dept heads for passing this along – keep these coming.)

The faculty union is also working on this. In the past the union has fought hard for more merit pay than the administration has been willing to give out, but I expect that part of the fallout from the fights over allocating this negative merit raise will be a preference for first getting across the board raises that match the cost of living – as calculated by the BLS, not by a guy who doesn’t understand the diff between stocks and flows.

Poulsen’s Presentation: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1VAX9CJgPXoQN3fOL3S0-Jl1M1PI0gwun/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=117814431711397553098&rtpof=true&sd=true

Dear colleagues, I am writing to let you know that Richie Hunter, vice president for university communications, will be leaving the University of Oregon to take the role of vice president for communications at the University of Michigan. While Richie finalized this decision over the last few weeks, she deferred announcing her transition until now in consideration of our presidential search. Richie came to the UO in August 2021 and has had a wonderful, positive impact on the University of Oregon community during her time here. Thanks to her strategic communications expertise, we effectively rolled out groundbreaking university initiatives such as the Ballmer Institute for Children’s Behavioral Health; the acquisition of the northeast UO Portland campus; Launch Oregon, the new venture capital partnership between the UO and the UO Foundation; and the Home Flight Scholars Program, a first-of-its-kind scholarship and support program for Native American/Alaska Native students of Oregon. She was also a critical partner in successfully positioning the University of Oregon into the spotlight during the Oregon22 World Athletics Championships. In a very short time, Richie skillfully reset the university’s communications landscape by establishing an organizational structure and team culture that maximizes our ability to tell the UO’s greatest stories. Richie has also served the University of Oregon as a sincere, enthusiastic, and visionary leader and thought partner. Her trademark joy and deep care for students, faculty, and staff were greatly valued by all.  Richie’s last day at the University of Oregon will be May 5. A national search will begin immediately for a new vice president, and we will work expediently to name an interim leadership structure for University Communications. Please join me in thanking Richie for her contributions to the University of Oregon and congratulating her on her new role at the University of Michigan. Sincerely, Jamie Moffitt Interim President

Fortunately VP Hunter (who presumably wrote this for Moffitt), can be cheaply replaced with ChatGPT, which writes in actual English rather than Administrativese:

Chat GPT:

Write a letter from the interim university president announcing that their VP for Strategic Communications will be leaving for a better job.

Dear Students, Faculty, and Staff,

It is with mixed emotions that I write to inform you that our Vice President for Strategic Communications, Ms. Jane Smith, will be leaving our university to pursue a new opportunity elsewhere. While we are sad to see her go, we are also proud of her achievements during her time here and grateful for the impact she has had on our community.

During her tenure, Ms. Smith led the development and implementation of our university’s strategic communication initiatives, elevating our brand and enhancing our reputation both locally and nationally. Her hard work and dedication have helped to position us as a leader in higher education, and her contributions will be greatly missed.

Ms. Smith has decided to pursue a new opportunity that she believes will further her professional growth and provide her with new challenges. While we are sorry to see her leave, we are also excited for her and wish her all the best in her future endeavors.

As we move forward, we will begin a search for a new Vice President for Strategic Communications. During this time, Ms. Smith will work closely with us to ensure a smooth transition and to help us identify and recruit a qualified replacement. We will keep you updated on our progress in this important search.

On behalf of the university, I would like to extend my sincere thanks to Ms. Smith for her dedication, commitment, and contributions to our community. We wish her all the best in her future endeavors and look forward to the continued success of our university under her leadership during this transition period.

Sincerely,

[Your Name] Interim University President

Update: This motion passed, I think unanimously.

Dear Senators – 

Last week I added a section to the motion (new 2.3) requiring that the new Graduation Task Force called for in the motion make its meetings and materials public, in response to concerns that the secret process used so far had led us to the current bad result. The amended text etc. is at https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YBUikWXbOW53GjWDJtNkRTujYdKR0BBQIKJJ20G1r1c/edit?usp=sharing

Also, I googled around and found that many (most? All but us?) university/faculty senate’s have to vote to approve the Academic Calendar. To cite one now rather relevant example, here’s UW-Madison: https://secfac.wisc.edu/academic-calendar/ and https://news.wisc.edu/faculty-senate-approves-academic-calendar-changes-2/. Note that the calendar their Senate votes on includes the date for Commencement.

Last, I still have not received the contracts for the conflicting track meets that I asked AD Rob Mullens for on Feb 22nd. He has forwarded my request to our General Counsel Kevin Reed’s Public Records Office, which is sitting on it. These contracts should show how much the Athletics Department is earning from these conflicting events and what constraints they might place on scheduling graduation. If I get them in time I’ll pass them on.

I look forward to the discussion and vote on this motion tomorrow. Let me know if you have any questions.

Bill Harbaugh

Econ Prof, UO

Senate Legislation: Concerning the Timing and Manner of Graduation Ceremonies

Section I

1.1 WHEREAS the University of Oregon’s graduation ceremonies are held for the recognition and honoring of our students’ academic experience’s at our University; and

1.2 WHEREAS; For many years UO’s graduation ceremonies were held on the weekend immediately following finals week, as is academically appropriate, but in 2010 the University Administration moved graduation to the Monday after the completion of finals week to avoid conflict with the NCAA Outdoor Track & Field Championships; and

1.3 WHEREAS this year a conflict with another sporting event, the Nike Outdoor Nationals, and then the Juneteenth Holiday have pushed graduation until Tuesday of the week after finals; and

1.4 WHEREAS; the weekend immediately after finals finish on Friday is a convenient time for our students and their celebrating families, particularly those with inflexible work schedules, to travel to Eugene; and

1.5 WHEREAS; for many years UO has emphasized its department, school, or college level graduation ceremonies, where students can graduate with friends from their majors, and where families can meet department faculty and staff, while this year the University is shifting the emphasis of graduation to a University-wide ceremony held in the football stadium, which will reduce opportunities for such interactions.

Section II

2.1 THEREFORE BE IT MOVED that it is the sense of the Senate that graduation should be held on the weekend immediately following finals week, and that the University should prioritize department, school, and college level ceremonies; and 

2.2 THEREFORE BE IT FURTHERMORE MOVED that the Senate leadership shall work with the university administration to form a Graduation Task Force with the participation of faculty, students, staff, and OAs, to work to improve graduation ceremonies, and that the Senate President shall appoint those members of this Task Force from Senate constituencies; and

2.3 THEREFORE BE IT FURTHERMORE MOVED that the work of this Graduation Task Force shall be public, with meeting times and Zoom links as well as agendas and documents posted on the Senate website; and

2.4 THEREFORE BE IT FINALLY MOVED that the Graduation Task Force shall bring its recommendations to the Senate for a vote, before the end of the 2022-23 Academic Year.

That would be John Karl Scholz, most recently Provost at UW-Madison. [Full disclosure: Scholz was one of my professors when I got my PhD there in 1995, where he was also Director of the Institute for Poverty Research. I liked him a lot, despite the fact I barely passed the field exam.]

I think he has the potential to be a great President for UO. Congratulations to the Trustees and their search committee and yes, I’ll say it – the search firm.

This is exactly what UO needs – a competent outsider with abundant academic and administrative experience, from a university with an international reputation.

I’m no macroeconomist, but all signs are that the FDIC will quickly arrange a sale of Silicon Valley Bank and contain the contagion, in no small part due to the lessons learned from the 2008 collapse of Washington Mutual, which was one of the precursors to the Great Recession.

UO donor and former Board of Trustees Chair Chuck Lillis was a WaMu board member and was sued for trying to move money beyond the reach of creditors before the bankruptcy, among other things. (His official UO bio doesn’t mention WaMu. Odd.)

WaMu’s D&O insurance company paid out, and then sued the WaMu directors, including Lillis, arguing that they’d failed to exercise their due diligence and that they should be personally liable. The lawsuits finally ended with a $37M payout. There was another $49M for ERISA violations – meaning raiding employee retirement accounts, which Lillis had been accused of at two other former companies.

But given that his checks to UO haven’t bounced, there seems little chance we’ll need to dename the LCB’s Lillis Hall, as President Frohnmayer had to do with Grayson Hall. [Full disclosure: While I have the fake brass “A” that the guys from facilities maintenance hacksawed off what is now McKenzie, I do *not* know who has the Pioneer Father’s nose.]

Don’t cry for Lillis, he came out of this just fine, as those of his ilk generally do. He’s now Chairman of the Board of Somalogic, whose shares have fallen 83% in the past two years, and where his bio also doesn’t mention WaMu.

Dear CAS Leadership, 

The CAS Commencement Advisory Group, UO Student Life and CAS Leadership have come together to determine how best to develop our commencement programs in the absence of individual department ceremonies. We have now confirmed many of the details of our June commencement events and we’d like to share them with you. Please forward this information to your faculty and staff. We also will be communicating directly with students tomorrow, so please don’t forward this email to students. [emp added]

In order to balance our time and venue constraints with length of ceremony concerns, CAS will hold separate ceremonies for undergraduate students by division: Humanities, Natural Sciences, Social Sciences, and the School of Global Studies and Languages (GSL). In addition, a separate CAS graduate ceremony will be held with hooding offered to PhDs.   

Our CAS Commencement website lists locations and times for each of the five ceremonies on Tuesday, June 20, 2023. Here are the details in brief: 
 

 
At each ceremony, students will cross a stage, have their name called and receive a diploma cover. There also will be a reception for all CAS graduates and their families. More information on this reception will be shared soon.  

We know faculty, staff, students, and families may have additional questions in the coming days and weeks, and we are working on finalizing program details now. As plans become final, we will update the CAS commencement website and we will soon be sharing RSVP information and an FAQ document to answer the most commonly asked questions.  
 

Best regards, 

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​

Just kidding, we all know it’s Uncle Phil’s call, and he’s gonna go with the guy who’s not going to let graduation interfere with Nike’s track meets down at The Phildo.

Good morning,

The Board of Trustees of the University of Oregon will meet in executive session on March 8, 2023. The board will meet pursuant to Oregon Revised Statutes (“ORS”) 192.660(2)(a) to consider the employment of a public officer or employee and ORS 192.660(2)(f) to consider information or records that are exempt. Pursuant to ORS 192.660(4), representatives of the institutionalized news media are allowed to attend, but the board requires that the discussions and any reports received in the executive session be undisclosed. Pursuant to ORS 192.660(6), no final action will be taken, or final decision made in the executive session.

The meeting will occur as follows:

Wednesday March 8 at 9:30 a.m. Pacific Time

University of Oregon Portland Campus, Library and Learning Center,

2700 NE Liberty St,  Portland, OR 97211.

Thank you,

Office of the University Secretary
[email protected]

https://trustees.uoregon.edu

University of Oregon | Board of Trustees

From this morning’s email:

Just a friendly reminder: When filling out a travel request in Concur, if you’re traveling anytime between Sept 16 – June 15, the answer to the question “Will you be absent any term other than summer?” is YES.

When you answer yes to this, you must provide information in the “Coverage Plan” field. Examples include:

• Missing one class and office hours. Both being covered by XXXXX. Will be available by Zoom/Teams if needed.
• Not missing any classes. Will be available by email and phone if needed for other duties.

The good news is you only need to fill this out if you’ve opted out of the microchip implant program.

That would be muckraking journalist Daniel Libit’s lawsuit against the University of New Mexico Foundation:

Dear University of Oregon community,

I write with an important update on the status of our institutional negotiations with Elsevier, a major provider of scholarly content through UO Libraries. This follows earlier campus updates about collecting input and entering contract negotiations, and many months of engagement from our researchers across campus through town halls, meetings, our faculty senate library subcommittee, and online open feedback forms.

The cost of access to Elsevier’s journals package is the UO Libraries’ single-largest annual expenditure, taking up approximately 10% of the entire collections budget, with annual price increases that have vastly outpaced inflation and squeezed other collections and services. These unsustainably high and escalating costs ignore modern realities, such as the increasing prevalence of open scholarship, and undermine our very purpose as a public research institution—to advance the creation and dissemination of new knowledge.

Working in partnership with Oregon State University and Portland State University, with whom our agreement is shared, our librarians have pushed hard to break the status quo, advocating for our scholarly community and making reasonable proposals to Elsevier throughout the spring and summer.

These proposals have offered a fair price for access to content and data for researchers, and sought to advance a more open, inclusive, and sustainable future for scholarly publishing, as outlined in the UO Libraries’ common negotiating goals this past March. The Oregon State University faculty senate endorsed these principles in May, and they reflect the values in UO’s Open Access Scholarship Policyadopted by our faculty senate in March 2021.

Elsevier’s response and counter proposals to date have failed to meaningfully address these goals or provide a clear rationale for pricing beyond profit-seeking at the three institutions’ expense. The pace of negotiation has further been delayed by Elsevier’s slow response times and repeated postponement and rescheduling of negotiation meetings.

As a result, no deal has been reached, and our libraries have little choice but to allow our current contract to lapse. We stand alongside institutions such as the University of Washington, which just weeks ago announced a similar failure to reach agreement with Elsevier and will also enter 2023 with no big deal package in place.

Our three institutional libraries agree that further negotiation with Elsevier this year will not be productive, and all three will pause further engagement with Elsevier until they can assess the impact of the contract lapse. We intend to reopen negotiations together in 2023. Our librarians will continue to gather feedback and input from our campus communities to inform proposals and to push for a fair and sustainable resolution.

What this means for you:

• Our contract with Elsevier will end on December 31, 2022. At that time, and until any new agreement is reached, we will cease receiving access to new 2023 Elsevier-published subscription content.
• We will retain access to the content of our 189 most-used subscribed journals, that were published up to and including December 31, 2022.
• We will also retain access to 609 journal backfiles with pre-1994 content that we purchased several years ago.
• We will have access to a growing share of open access articles published in Elsevier journals, which are free to read, and for some journal titles this includes more than 70% of newly published content.
• Our Libraries are committed to minimizing any inconvenience to researchers and ensuring that researchers are able to access the content they need, through a raft of alternative access measures, including interlibrary loan.
• You will still be able to publish your work in or review for Elsevier journals; these activities are unaffected.

Learn more with our alternative access quick guide. For questions regarding Elsevier negotiations and alternative access to content, use our feedback form or contact [email protected].

Sincerely,

Janet Woodruff-Borden
Acting Provost and Executive Vice President