Higher Education Productivity

There indeed is a lot of data to go through here and this looks like a thorough report worth
studying. One thing I note (dogs stay up late at night) is you STEM comment. While not revealing it here, the UO has a much lower participation in STEM majors than you think – well some of this is due to no engineering school here, that doesn’t explain all of it. From the budget perspective,
the ratio of CAS faculty salaries in sciences to the other fields (in CAS) is no where near commensurate with the ratio of undergraduate degrees in these fields. I am no economist either, (deliberately by choice), but this has been out of balance for some time here at the UO.

Some of this can be revealed by looking at the UO profile in collegeresults.org

a generally decent way to compare institutions using real, actual, data.

STEM means Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (note Medicine)

If you haven’t seen this, get ready for the ride of a lifetime.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3L8TEiQQ1dY

This is Bill O’Reilly on the U of O as a “far left haven,” referring to the findings on the political affiliations of faculty. As a U of O student, I’ve often complained about how the student body is ideologically shortchanged by a community, beyond faculty, that fails to represent different perspectives.

Look, technology based lecturing is not the problem here at all – it just excarbates an existing and long standing problem.

Most professors simply spew content and “facts”
at a mostly disinterested student audience.

They do not engage or mentor the audience. Why –
a) lack of training, b) developing engaging content and teaching style is extremely time consuming, c) lack of incentive, we all get paid independent of the amount we bore our students.

Please refrain from turning this blog into one related to teaching. There are no winners there.

Post Boise State debacle … now let’s see how committed we are to regulating that business!

The Dog Barks

Re: The previous post

This is really a superficial and historically inaccurate way to characterize the rise of Athletics in the Universitie’s profile.

History reveals the following for the two major sports of Football and Basketball.

1. The UO Football time went through a 26 year period (1963 to 1989) in which there were no bowl game appearances.

2. The National Profile of UO football rose during 1995 and 1996 due to successive appearances in the Rose Bowl and Cotton Bowl.
A rise in out of state students was commensurate with this success. This is where the Athletics started to have more prominence – because after decades of losing teams, the UO had a winning team.

3. Clearly basketball has not had the success that football has, but, in terms of relative success the same “new winning team” emerges. To wit: over the period 1980-1995 the Oregon Ducks had the worst cumulative record in Pac 10 conference play (and last seasons 2-16 record is a throwback to that period). UO Basketball was
going nowhere.

Then things started to improve. Don Monson got
canned and Jerry Green came to build a more competitive atmosphere. Ultimately he left because of the poor facilities – but he planted
the seed for future success.

2001-02 Season: 14-4 in Pac 10 and First Place –
the last time the Ducks won a Pac 10 basketball title was in 1938!

So now Basketball joins the fix with the expectation of seasons of winning 20 games and
then going on to either the NCAA or NIT. So
how will did basketball do?

Well so far, that has been the only Pac 10 title
but other tourney appearances have occured.

2002-03 Season: Pac 10: 10-8 overall 23-10
2003-04 Season: Pac 10: 9-9 overall 18-13
2004-05 Season: Pac 10: 6-12 overall 14-13 (trouble brewing)

2005-06 Season: Pac 10: 7-11 overall 15-19 (why does Kent still have a job – lots for UO matters to dig in to here, one day)

2006-07 Season: Pac 10: 11-7 Overall 29-8 (a return to winning – Kent reprieve)

2007-08 Season: Pac 10: 9-9 Ovearll 19-14

The disaster last year:

Pac 10 2-16 overall 8-23

The point of this history is the following:

Once an expectation of winning has occurred, and once you have tasted success in terms of titles,
your emphasis changes. The only way the UO can reverse its emphasis on athletics is when both
football and basketball tank back to their performance levels established in the 1970s and 1980s …

How can I start a blog like this for Portland State? I know that is a dumb question, but I am new at this …

What strikes me are the similarities between the UO and PSU, low paid staff and faculty and bully administrators making out like bandits!

The dog can shed a little light on the 49 to 42% reduction situation. Overhead rates for research Universities are set by some guidelines related to the stated amount of space and other infrastructure that is needed to support the variety of research done on your campus. There are forms to fill out and metrics to meet. As I understand it, sometime last year, the person(s) in charge of the “campus research infrastructure forms” made a few mistakes and made it look like the UO was better off than it really was in terms of its ability to support research – as a result the overhead rate was lowered by the Fed. This stuff is hard to verify, of course, but I am pretty sure that is what happened.

Hi Dog, thanks for comments. I think that the size of this cut – ~$4M – should be a close approximation of how much money was inappropriately spent on non-research purposes.

I’m still trying to be sure of that, and document it more carefully, but I don’t see anyway to avoid that interpretation. If you have more specific info please send it along.

On a related note, Linton is charging a tax on core facility service charges. These are service units that manage high-end machines for users on campus. The money that goes to Linton from the tax is for general support of the facilities. But that is what the indirect costs Linton gets are for! So he is double-dipping… getting the indirect costs from grants, and then taking money from the direct costs through this tax for supporting activities meant to be supported by the indirect. I don’t think the Federal agencies would approve.

Dog says,

the NSFW reference above detracts from
the already marginal credibility of this blog.

Dog update: yes I should have made that clear earlier – the responsibility for providing the proper documentation for DHHS ultimately resides within the office du DYKE – with the VPR acting
in an advisory capacity. Of the 4 versions listed
I am quite sure that this is a combination of Version A (not taken seriously + typical incompetence within the Dyke operation) + Version C.

I do know, naturally, that the office of the VPR is pretty infuriated at this outcome.

About the fee for the ICC information. I ask this question…Where in the OAR’s or the University Policies or even the IMD’s of the Board of Higher Ed does it say they can charge a member of the governing body of the university a fee for requested information. I don’t get this notion. The Admininstration acts like they are running the show…the University is govern by the faculty and the president where does it say that the faculty and president don’t govern how the administration does business. I think you should ask for the policy or OAR that states they can charge a member of the governing body a fee for requested information.

Thank you so much Anonymous! You are so right. The charter of the U of O says the Faculty and the President govern the U of O. The administration are hired “assistants” to perform specific tasks. As governors of the U, the faculty should demand transparency in all U of O business – the administration works for them. Faculty, do your homework and demand your administration give you the documents you need to govern this institution – It’s your business and your job.

What do folks here think about the movement towards unionization? While I’m for it in the abstract, I look at the leadership of the GTFF and shudder to think that faculty of a similar bent would take a lead role. It also seems like we’re giving up on faculty governance – “since we’re not really in charge, let’s give ourselves more leverage.” Given that we have a more academically minded president, I’d wait to see how faculty governance now pans out (though somehow we need to figure out how to get greater participation – kind of a chicken and egg conundrum).

Since the primary goal of unionization seems to be better compensation, why not a more elegant solution like pegging administrator compensation vs. comparators to faculty compensation vs. those same comparators? (Include expense accounts vs. similar things for faculty; renovations to Johnson pegged to the percentage of buildings waiting on deferred maintenance; etc. with say FAC approval of any “overrides”)

Part 2 of 2
“Vote of No Confidence”

The current administration has performed egregious and probably liable acts against the University and its faculty. They have given themselves grand raises, almost every 6 months if you look at Francis Dykes’ pay (who by the way only holds a CPA certificate), and bullied their way into forcing the faculty to feel inferior right to their faces. When, Ms. Dyke said, “we removed the information from our publicly-accessible website and restricted access to personnel with a “demonstrably legitimate need for particular information in order to fulfill their official, professional responsibilities.” No one said a word! Hello – We have a fox in the hen house. Our accountant is telling us she’s hiding financial information. Uh, as bosses shouldn’t we say, “no, you can’t do that?”

The credentials of the administration is suspect right down to directors of departments. Let’s not discuss the ICC fund cut here but it’s worthy of mention to assist with this point. Administration does not have the authority to change rules, regulations, nor provide themselves raises unless the faculty senate votes on the issue.

What’s going on? 4 million dollars earmarked for research has disappeared but let’s not over look the new 2 million dollar to renovate Johnson Hall. The golden parachute given to Fronmeyer is supercilious – his teaching fte is only .2 with 23 students with an additional emeritus pay of $245,700 thousand dollars a year – for what? I implore the faculty to simply step up to the plate and do the job they are given to do. Like any sound business people, start by cleaning house.

The task may seem daunting but not impossible because the U of O has specialized colleges that can handle each piece of the task. We have law, business, journalism schools, and much more. We are a university of resources beyond the average dream so let’s use it and “Take Back Our University”.

To do so begins with one simple step. Present a motion to the faculty senate on October 14th, and have the faculty senate take a vote of “No Confidence in the current administration”. No one can stop you. This gives the faculty to legal right to remove persons from the administration immediately. All records will be open for review and the balance of power will quickly be restored.

Be careful and do not overlook the current University General Council as well. Didn’t Fronmeyer just tell us we are going to a “corporate format” because it was easier to do business? Well, guess what? As a business, we’ve got some bad management going on and it’s time to hire in good, honest, and respectful management. The University is the business of the faculty and the faculty has got to start taking their job seriously. It’s in the charter!

Identifying who stays and who goes is easy. Current employees can tell you.

I’m not against unions – if you want one go for it. But do it for the right reasons. How funny would it be if a group of educated people like professors with Ph.D.s thought they needed to unionize to govern their subordinates? That’s just too rich to pass up on the late night shows. But I won’t tell Letterman, yet.

Back to reality – Faculty, it’s not difficult. You can do this. You have the charter that tells you it’s your responsibility to govern the U of O. Clean out your administration with a senate vote of No Confidence, hire in some good people, and together with the president, you can build your University into a model program.

Any questions? Just ask. Meanwhile we should be shouting from the rooftops,

“Take Back Your University!”

Well said. However, Let’s take a closer look at your comment and think a moment. You said, “If UO has moved away from self-governance…” . Please tell me when we moved away from self-governance?

I read it in the charter. The faculty with the president govern the U of O. The F-a-c-u-l-t-y. We are not removed from self-governing but have been duped into believing we have. That’s what the current administration under the guidance of the last president did to us.

When we as faculty have to file freedom of information forms, and then on top of the insult, are told to pay for the results, then we should be on our toes. Our subordinates are snowballing us.

This current administration has been assembled by Dave Frohnmayer and, who with them, conspired against our faculty for personal gain. I am outraged beyond compare. Mr. Frohnmayer, our absence from your retirement party should speak volumes.

Our hired CPA, Ms. Dyke, has clearly overstepped her bounds. She blatantly admits hiding financial information and should be removed from her office immediately. Immediately! If she were working for a private firm, her actions alone would have her fired and investigated for criminal activity. In the minimal words of Mr. Trump, “You’re Fired!” Let us peruse our business college for better.

As well, the UO’s general council should be suspended and reported to the bar- there is simply no way that she cannot know that the decisions by this administration are against the UO charter. We have a law school from which we can draw.

Just as we would do in any business circumstance, when our hired management people are covering up and deleting access, we need to bring in new people. It’s our job. We have a new president, now let’s build a new administration.

I agree with the prior statements:

“Take Back Our University – Today”

I’m mad as hell.

I vote “No Confidence in Our Administration”.

The dog barks and barks.

Two points:

1) ” … should speak volumes” –> the plain and simple truth around here the UO is that the faculty are not capable of “speaking volumes”: we do not exercise any collective voice, but merely bitch, sometimes in elegant english, about the state of things and become pre-occupied with our perceived meager paychecks. Yes, the administration is an outrage and don’t give a flying (fill in our favorite adjective) about any ‘academic mission” of the UO but there are two sides to that coin – the faculty collectively lie down like sheep. Now the one actual vehicle that does exist is the Dean’s Council – in general this body merely frets budgets, but in principle does represent the collective voice of their faculty. So if one could urge the dean’s council to give an offical vote of no confidence in say, Francis Dyke (individually they all have no confidence) then we might be getting somewhere. So, if your pissed off and wanting got get on a rooftop and shout a) rooftop access is difficult and b) complain loudly to your dean that you have no confidence that the admin at the UO gives that flying (whatever) about academics. Maybe we should all behave like LeBlount and just slug Francis or Melinda Grier – surely we would be re-instated

2. I think Rich Linton’s response to the ICC attack in this forum was good. While I am not a fan of Linton, I do believe that there is no wrong doing in that office. In terms of what ICC supports here, startup costs are a major deal and the loss of 4M means, effectively 6-8 less startup packages are no available. This is a big deal. In terms of comparing to the UW – one traditional odd thing is that their has never been an arrangement for ICC money to flow directly to the Computing Center to support research activities. This is weird (but lots about the UO is weird) but at the UW substantial amount of ICC money goes to support their overall computer services.

If given the opportunity, I, too, will vote “No Confidence in Our Administration.” This house cleaning should include ALL of the current Vice Presidents and Vice Provosts, not just Dyke and Grier. To the extent that they were all put in place by Frohnmayer to reinforce his vision of the corporate university, they are all part of the problem.

Good comments and thank you for the dialog.

Yes, I agree the faculty get heavily involved in their research and student’s needs which does lead them away from governance. To help with this the faculty senate is in place to represent them. And why does the faculty only know bits and pieces? Is it because the faculty senate only receives bits and pieces? They only receive what the administration wants to tell them – rarely do they receive a full report. I redirect you to the last abysmal financial reports presented by Dyke.

You brought a smile to my face when you said, “I have to laugh – especially when I think of how such subordination would happen – report to the Senate?” We laugh together – yes subordination would happen as it’s supposed to with reports to the senate – full reports. That’s what the administration is supposed to do. Funny how the raises the administration gave each other never made it to the senate floor for a vote. More importantly, I wonder if the raises were even reported to the state legislature for approval – now there’s a research topic.

Where is our financial reporting? Why is access limited to our governing body? Why are we top-heavy with administration? Where is our affirmative action plan? Why are large amount of funds missing – e.g. 4 million dollars? Why is our classified staff being harassed? Why does the UO charter say the Faculty and President together govern our University?

Yes, freeze activity until we can sort out the corruption and how deep it goes. Our classified staff know how to move our paperwork and people will still get paid, records will still be collected, and work will still continue. Yes, we laugh together as we take back our University. Yes we can vote “No Confidence” with a smile. You can report to the faculty.

Dog, you are hardly a lunatic voice in the wilderness, or a mad dog for that matter. This blog gets about 200 unique visitors a day. We get many complements on it, from people who say they wish they had the courage to speak out as well.

People are hopeful about Lariviere, but at the moment all Frohnmayer’s old guard administrators are still in power and there’s no sign he will change any of them. Imagine Obama, but with Cheney and Ashcroft and Paulson still pulling the strings.

Regarding the admin raises, these are set by Provost Bean, not OUS. OUS only sets the President’s pay – and, of course the staff contract.

UO Matters

“We laugh together – yes subordination would happen as it’s supposed to with reports to the senate – full reports.”

I don’t think you got the joke. There’s no way a body like the senate can be an authoritative body – nobody could have the expertise needed in all matters to make meaningful votes. What can work better are the committees, and sometimes they do sometimes they don’t – but by focusing on one area they at least have a chance of being constructive. As far as any kind of birds-eye view goes, faculty are currently best represented by department chairs and the FAC, and maybe we should think about beefing these up a bit. But the senate as it works now is a joke. Put aside the Iraq and diversity nonsense and the structural questions which seem to plague it – when meaningful items come up, all the rest of the crap takes so long that senators have all of five minutes to make up their mind on something which might be pretty subtle. In many such bodies, there are no expectations of making a decision as you sit there – there is trust in committees to do their jobs, so the senate serves as a place to 99% of the time just learn about what the committees are doing. But instead real business gets brought up with relatively little context, making it a great forum for those who want to disinform and anger, but not exactly what I’d call a deliberative body. It’s going to be even worse next year.

Lots to bark about

but keeping it short.

I think that this overall stated view of the “poisonous” Dave F regime from the standpoint of faculty relationships represents a tangent to the real issue. I would, instead, characterize the Dave F regime as a systematic shift in focus away from the academic mission of the university (and faculty relations are part of that) towards a complete donor driven agenda. This couple with Moseley’s intense desire for decentralization (starting in around 1995/6) has lead to a situation where the “core mission” of the campus no longer exists and it can’t get any worse than that.

To the extant that the UO senate can breathe life back into our core mission (e.g. educating students to be responsible citizens and critical thinkers in the world as it exists now, not in 1950) is the extent to which the senate becomes important.

Dog speak:

1. While I am not gonna defend the high pay of adminstrators here (Dyke’s salary is outrageous relative to her performance, competence, and duties) I do want to point out that, like always, just using an average does not represent the problem well. To wit,

Yes the average of all the listed admin salaries in the recent table is 217K. But if you remove Dave F as an abberation (he is way out on the tail of this distribution) the average drops to 178. I would also argue that Mosely and Davis are abberations as well and removing them drops the Average down to 170.

I realize the inclusion of DAVE F makes your arguments more dramatic, but also biased. I would say the correct figure to use for the average admin salary here is 170-180K – still high, but perhaps not so egregious.

2. Why should the HC have any more backbone than any other instution around here. Of course they are gonna accept DAVE F’s services …

It’s not just the upper administration salaries that have changed. The upper administrators up’d the salaries of the lower level administrators too. Some former office managers and budget managers are now “reclassed” with brand new titles and making in the upper 70’s 80’s and 90’s and more. Its not just the executive staff that got a jump in salary all the people that are stuck to someone’s back side got one. This salary gifting has been going on for at least 4 years and increased as time got closer to Dave’s retirement and believe it or not….all approved by our top A_ _ kisser the Director of Affirmative Action! Without her blessing it couuldn’t happen! Talk about using the University for your own personal gain…these people have really taken over!

The previous commenter has a good idea!