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Interim AD Lorraine Davis

3/30/2010: Since 2006, Oregon’s new Interim AD, Lorraine Davis, has been getting paid half time at a $197,278 FTE out of a fund that was originally intended to support retiring tenured faculty while they taught classes for 5 years prior to complete retirement.

When Provost John Moseley, and VP’s Davis and Dan Williams retired ~2006, Dave Frohnmayer set them all up with generous golden parachute contracts, paid from this fund. All of them are still on the books. Instead of requiring them to teach – as the program intended – Frohnmayer came up with administrative sinecures. Moseley is obviously the biggest offender. Despite an OUS audit about the situation, Lariviere has him on the books as “liaison UO to Central Oregon” (sic). We pay Moseley 1/2 time at a $248,941 FTE to liase from his fishing retreat on the Deschutes – you can rent one of his lodges here. We don’t know what Dan Williams is doing for his money.

From this anonymous email we were sent, it appears one of Lorrane Davis’s responsibilities while “overseeing the academic support services for student-athletes”, as President Lariviere’s email below puts it, actually involved proctoring student’s exams at away games:

Professor XXX,

I am writing to discuss a potential conflict for Student XYZ and the
final in your course.  As you may know, the volleyball team has
reached the NCAA tournament.  Depending on the outcome of their play this
weekend, they could be traveling as early as Tuesday next week to the
regional site for the next round.

The team will have to win two matches this weekend to continue in the
tournament.  I’d like to plan as if they will do so.

We have arranged for Lorraine Davis, Special Assistant to the
Vice Provost and former Vice President of Academic Affairs, to travel with
the team to proctor exams. 
I am happy to be a contact regarding the
facilitation of preparing those exams to be sent with Lorraine and your
preferences for how the exam is administered.  Or, if your preference is
not to have the exam taken on the road, I would be happy to assist in
making other arrangements.

By Sunday evening, we will know if the women will proceed or not,
and have more information regarding travel.

Thank you,

“Shawn” (name changed to protect the original author)

Academic Advisor & Tutorial Coordinator
Support Services for Student-Athletes
1237 University of Oregon
Eugene, OR 97403

I wonder if $197,278 FTE is the going rate for proctoring exams? Don’t GTF’s earn $12,000? I wonder if we paid her travel expenses too? This is what they mean when they say the athletic department is financially self-supporting? Somehow I don’t think Interim AD Lorraine Davis is going to be spending a lot of time getting to the bottom of that question! I guess the good news is that after she starts collecting the $30,000 a month AD salary, these payments will go back toward real academic purposes – at least temporarily. 

From: Susan Peter
Sender: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
ReplyTo: Susan Peter
Subject: deans-dirs: Heads Up Alert: Interim Athletics Director selected
Sent: Mar 26, 2010 11:20 AM

The following message is forwarded on behalf of president Richard
Lariviere –

Today, I am announcing that I’ve appointed Lorraine Davis to be the
interim Athletics Director. She will begin April 20 and serve on a
month-by-month basis until a permanent Athletics Director is selected in
a national search. Lorraine has a long, distinguished history with the
university. She started on the faculty in 1972 and retired in 2006 as
the vice president for academic affairs. She is an excellent
administrator who already works closely with the athletics department
team in her current role overseeing the academic support services for
student-athletes. She also chairs the vice provost for enrollment
management search, which is expected to be completed soon, and is deputy
administrator of the E.C. Brown Foundation and Trust, a philanthropic
health education organization. I am confident that she’ll be a strong
leader at this important time for the Athletics Department.

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