UO Matters

Just kidding, rumor is they’ll announce a mandatory vaccine policy today, following OSU, PSU, WOU, etc.

Gleason, who will perhaps be best remembered on campus for his firm stance against faculty viewing child porn during the first union bargaining sessions, is retiring and Johnson Hall is searching for a replacement “Faculty” Athletics Director to sign the NCAA compliance reports. Pay is $100K or so – from the academic budget – for 0.5 FTE, plus free travel to away games, and minus the value of your immortal soul.

Dear Colleagues,

We are writing to let you know that Tim Gleason, professor of journalism and the UO’s faculty athletics representative (FAR), has announced his plans to retire at the end of this calendar year. Tim has served as the FAR for nearly seven years, supporting student-athletes in their studies and chosen sport.

During his time as the FAR, Tim has been a passionate advocate for our student-athletes. He has ensured their eligibility for competition, provided academic oversight in discussions about athletics, and represented the university at the Pac 12 and NCAA levels. It goes without saying that this past year has posed its own unique challenges as everything has had to adapt to the pandemic. We are grateful for Tim’s dedication to the success of our student-athletes during this challenging time and throughout his time as the FAR.

A nationally recognized administrator with 15 years of experience as the dean of the UO School of Journalism and Communication, Tim has brought a wealth of knowledge and expertise to the position. He will be missed when he retires, but we are glad that he will remain a friend of the university.

Tim will officially step down from the position on December 31, 2021. We have launched an internal search, chaired by Hans Dreyer, associate professor of human physiology, to find the next FAR. More information on the search and the application process is available on the president’s website. We anticipate selecting the next FAR before Tim retires to allow overlap and ensure a smooth transition. If you have any questions about the search, please email pres@uoregon.edu.

Please join us in thanking Tim for his many years of service to the University of Oregon and wishing him the best in his retirement.
Sincerely,
Michael H. Schill
President and Professor of Law
Patrick Phillips
Provost and Senior Vice President

The deadline to notify assistant profs about tenure decisions was May 1. That was Saturday, so I imagine most people thought the university would tell them Friday. Nope. No notices went out. I can imagine how stressful this was – to be told you’ll get a tenure letter by May 1, and then not getting an email – not even one announcing a delay. Many nervous emails from faculty to dept heads, from heads to deans, etc.

Today Karen Ford from CAS did a little damage control, in the process discovering Provost Phillips is hoping to get around to tenure decisions soon, maybe:

From: CAS Dean <casdean@uoregon.edu>
Date: May 3, 2021 at 14:53:07 PDT
To:cas-heads@lists.uoregon.edu, casbudmgr@lists.uoregon.edu
Subject:cas-heads: Promotion Decisions from Office of the Provost

Sent on behalf of Karen J. Ford, Dean for Faculty:

Dear CAS heads and directors/managers.

As you’ve no doubt noticed, promotion decision letters have not yet been sent to candidates from the Provost’s Office.  They are hoping to notify TTF faculty standing for promotions and tenure or going through midterm contract renewal reviews by May 18.  Career faculty candidates should hear about their promotions on June 1.

Please let me know if you have any questions about this, and I apologize for not letting you know about the expected date change sooner.

Karen

Karen J. Ford

Dean for Faculty

Professor of English

In the Oregonian today, from Daily Emerald reporter Shane Hoffman. A few snippets:

… Data obtained by The Oregonian/OregonLive through a public records request show 91 out of the university’s 520 student-athletes tested positive for COVID-19 between July 17, 2020, and March 2 of this year. According to the university’s latest enrollment numbers, 17.5% of student-athletes have tested positive, compared with 8% of students overall, though student-athletes are required to get tested frequently, while other students are not. …

This is the first time the university has reported this data, previously declining media requests while citing privacy laws such as HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) and FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act).

A New York Times investigation published Dec. 11 reported at least 6,629 coronavirus cases in athletic departments around the country. Nine Pac-12 schools provided complete data, and two — Colorado and Arizona State — contributed “limited” data. Oregon was the only school in the conference to provide no data. Oregon was among 19 schools of the 130 surveyed that did not provide the information.

A New York Times spokeswoman told The Oregonian/OregonLive via email that UO denied requests for data and that the newspaper subsequently filed an open records request. The university responded by saying it did not have records about cases in the athletic department, and that any records it did have would be exempt due to privacy. …

FERPA and HIPAA do prohibit schools from disclosing information that could potentially harm or identify individuals, but do not prevent the university from disclosing aggregate numbers to the public.

“I can say confidently that denying access to such data doesn’t serve public interest,” said attorney Gunita Singh, legal fellow with the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. “FERPA and HIPAA should absolutely not be used to withhold de-identified, aggregate data about the toll of the virus, especially at a time like this when we are by no means out of the woods.”

Singh added: “I do think there is a degree of short-sightedness when these laws are overapplied, because it is to everybody’s detriment. The public and the news media have a right to see the data, understand the trends, understand the risks involved with physically heading back to school.”

Duck athletic secrecy aside, UO posts a daily count of student and employee cases here. For employees they even report what buildings they worked in – and from those locations most positive employee tests seem to be athletic department employees. Of course they are presumably tested more frequently than the average schlub.

Update: Rumor has it that the EPA resolution will come up around 4:15.

3-5 PM Wed April 28th 2021, on Zoom here: https://uoregon.zoom.us/j/95815283199

• Land Acknowledgment
• Intro Remarks: Senate President Elliot Berkman and Senate Vice President Spike Gildea
• ASUO updates; Ella Meloy

Approval of the Minutes

• April 7, 2021

State of the University

• Provost Patrick Phillips

New Business

• US20/21-06: New Program Proposal – Ph.D. in Spanish; Cecilia Enjuto-Rangel (Romance Languages), David Wacks (Romance Languages)
• US20/21-13: Course Policies on CANVAS use, Syllabi and Office Hours; Frances White (Anthropology), Ron Bramhall (Office of the Provost)
• US20/21-14: Creation of the School of Global Studies & Languages; Ian McNeely (History, German & Scandinavian), David Wacks (Romance Languages)
• Updates: US20/21-04: Affirming Multi-Source, Criteria-Based Teaching Evaluation Framework; Sierra Dawson (Office of the Provost), Bill Harbaugh (Economics), Austin Hocker (Office of the Provost). Report: recent Response Rates
• US20/21-10: The UO Senate opposes any further efforts by the UO Administration to limit the availability of the Equal Pay Act’s protections in professional settings; Bill Harbaugh (Economics), Beatrice Dorhn (School of Law)
• [SUSPENSION OF THE RULES]: US20/21-15: The UO Senate asserts the importance of faculty governance guiding the transition of Clark Honors College faculty to the Faculty in Residence model; Samantha Hopkins (Clark Honors College, Earth Sciences)

Open Discussion

• OICRC update; Nicole Commissiong

Adjournment

5:00 P.M.

4/25/2021: When it comes to the Duck athletic budget nothing surprises me, certainly not the news that the 10% paycuts for coaches that President Schill announced last year were a sham.

James Crepea has the story in the Oregonian:

All of Oregon’s returning assistant football coaches received new contracts this offseason.

Offensive coordinator Joe Moorhead, receivers coach Bryan McClendon and cornerbacks coach Rod Chance all signed new deals this winter, according to documents released to The Oregonian/OregonLive in response to a public records request.

Moorhead, who signed a two-year contract for $900,000 last year and was due to earn $1 million this year, is now signed through Jan. 2023 for $1.15 million annually.

McClendon, who was hired in April 2020 to a three-year contract for a prorated $360,000 last year and $400,000 each of the next two years, remains signed through Jan. 2023 and will now earn $515,000 annually.

Chance, who was under contract through Jan. 2022 for $350,000 per year, was extended through Jan. 2023 for $385,000 annually.

4/8/2021: How President Schill scammed the academic budget out of $1.2M for football

Leo Baudhuin has a great story in the Emerald on the long history of our students’ efforts to end their $1.7M payment to Duck Athletics for “free” football and basketball tickets, here.

They finally succeeded this year. So President Schill turned around and gave the athletic department another $1.2M from licensing revenue – money that has historically been split 50/50 between the athletic and academic budgets:

Instead of replacing the ASUO agreement with a similar mandatory fee, Schill proposed a plan to provide students with 5,000 season tickets for a discounted fee of $100 — a price consistent with that of a “Pac-12 Package” for football under the most recent ASUO and athletics agreement. Schill said he will subsidize the agreement by paying athletics $1.2 million out of UO’s licensing revenue.

4/24/2021 update:

When I first wrote about this earlier this month a reader emailed me wondering if UO had notified the investors holding the Knight Arena bonds that UO VPFA Jamie Moffitt had loaned out the reserve fund. It turns out that she hadn’t even told the Oregon State Treasurer. So I did.

Today I got the email below from the Oregon Treasury Dept. They had a talk with UO’s finance people, Mullens had to pay the money back with interest, and Treasury is going to keep an eye on UO’s auditor, who seems to have missed this impropriety and who knows how many other ones:

On Apr 24, 2021, at 11:53 AM, … @ost.state.or.us> wrote:

Mr. Harbaugh,

We appreciate your bringing the issue related to the Arena Reserve Fund to our attention.  We likewise alerted University Finance staff to the requirements associated with the use of the Arena Reserve Funds and specifically that amounts credited to the Arena Reserve are to be used only to pay Arena Bond debt service.  Treasury staff met with University Finance and Athletics staff this week to review Arena Reserve Fund conditions and constraints. We have confirmed that moneys have been transferred back to the Arena Reserve Fund, including applicable interest earnings, to bring the Fund in alignment with the Bond issuance requirements.  University staff have assured us that they are taking necessary steps and putting processes in place, including working with the University internal auditor, to ensure that such a mistake does not occur in the future. Treasury staff will also institute a periodic certification process to validate that the Arena Reserve Fund is being maintained in accordance with the 2008 General Obligation Bond requirements.

Again, we do appreciate your bringing this matter to our attention. Please contact me if you have any questions.

Best regards, …

4/07/2021: Ducks raid Knight Arena Bond Reserve Fund for coaches pay:

Back in 2007 or so when the state agreed to let UO sell $235M in bonds for the Knight Arena – ultimately guaranteed by future UO tuition revenue and the full faith and credit of the university – they insisted the athletic department set aside $1 of every ticket over $8 for an emergency reserve fund in case ticket revenue and Uncle Phil’s Legacy Fund couldn’t cover the deficit. The prediction was that this would build to $7M by 2019, but ticket sales have been slow and it is actually only $5.8M.

Now President Schill has let our VPFA lend it all to Duck Athletics at 0% interest, so they can keep paying the coaches:

Full agreement here.

The money is of course fungible, and will allow the Ducks to keep paying the bloated salaries of their coaches, despite the language in their contracts making clear that UO does not have to raid the rest of the budget for them. E.g.:

Full log here: https://publicrecords.uoregon.edu/requests

April 7, 2021, on zoom here: https://uoregon.zoom.us/j/94175088714

Call to Order

• Land Acknowledgment; Kirby Brown
• Intro Remarks; Senate President Elliot Berkman and Senate VP Spike Gildea
• ASUO updates

Approval of the Minutes

• March 10, 2021

State of the University

• President Schill

New Business

• Vote: US20/21-11: Human Research Protection Program policy; Emily Tanner-Smith
• Vote:  US20/21-13: Course Policies on CANVAS use, Syllabi and Office Hours; Frances White and Ron Bramhall
• Vote: US20/21-12: University of Oregon endorsement for the faculty position on the University of Oregon Board of Trustees on behalf of the University Senate; Senate Executive Committee

Notice of Motion

• Changes to Core Education Council
• Open Access policy

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&geo=US&q=fleas,duck%20basketball,duck%20football,duck%20baseball,university%20of%20oregon

UO’s Law School gives the average student a 50% discount on tuition. The cost of this is now $8M a year. The money comes from UO’s general fund – which is mostly undergrad tuition for College of Arts Sciences students, and state funds:

You’d think that would buy us a pretty respectable law school. Barely. The US News rankings put our law school in a tie for #72. Almost every other UO graduate program, with the notable exception of the Lundquist College of Business, does better, despite the Law school money suck:

From a NYT Op-Ed here:

Kyle Raze, a graduate student in economics at the University of Oregon, studied turnout patterns in the wake of the 2013 Supreme Court ruling in Shelby County v. Holder. The court declared Section 5 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which required jurisdictions with a history of discrimination to get preclearance from the Justice Department for any change in election law, unconstitutional. Shelby opened the door to the enactment of voter suppression measures.

Raze, in his February 2021 paper, “Voting Rights and the Resilience of Black Turnout,” writes that

Despite well-founded fears to the contrary, the Shelby decision does not appear to have widened the turnout gap between Black and White voters in previously covered states.

Instead, Raze found

an accumulating body of evidence that suggests that voters mobilize in response to increases in the cost of voting when those increases are perceived as threats to the franchise.

Jack Stripling has the report in the Chronicle, here. These were LSU Board meetings, presumably he’ll get around to trashing OSU soon. Here’s hoping he kept screenshots of those secret NCAA portal communications. Those will be crucial to making sure the other big-time college sports presidents help him find his next job running SHEEO or something.