Update: Archived video of the meeting is now available, here. It cuts off before the public records debate, meaning we have no public record of Hubin and Berdahl’s rationale for subverting UO’s public records process. Peter Keyes’s clear presentation about the union is there though, along with Berdahl’s rant.
5/10/2012: Sam Stites has the ODE version, here.
“All things being equal, you prefer to stay with the status quo,” Berdahl said. “I would not accept changes to any Senate committee during my interim presidency.” …
Toward the end of the meeting, Economics professor Bill Harbaugh took the floor to bring up issues over the new public records fee policy ending the $200 fee waiver.
“This policy was changed without any notice to the Senate or the Senate Transparency Committee,” Harbaugh said. “I think the next step is for the Senate Transparency Committee to figure out why these changes were made in order to come back and give a recommendation to the Senate.”
Consistency is for the little people, I guess.
5/9/2012: Live, these are my comments, not quotes!
State of University, Pres Berdahl:
Shout-outs to award winning faculty and students. I’d mention their names, but that would be a FERPA violation. Search moving along, expects the candidate to be here in June, job filled by Sept. Challenges with union, but committed to moving forward as best we can to contract, being fair. His time has been focused on governance, getting independent institutional board that will act as advocate. Slips in obligatory Pernsteiner dig.
Stahl: Q about administrative problems. Berdahl: I just got an award from Berkeley for this! We need to be civil – I think he means polite and evasive, not civil.
Senate Pres election, Bonine: It’s gonna be Greek style. It’s Rob Kyr, only nominee for next year’s Pres. Good. Still haven’t found anyone for vice pres (meaning Pres for 2013/14).
Classified research. Stahl wants to pass classified research policy and make a separate policy on fee for service work (like materials testing). Gnarly. Stahl wins this one, I think.
Motion to add ASUO Pres to IAC:
Waddell: Simple enough, add one more student.
Berdahl: No pasaran!
Kyr: We have delayed *all* changes to accommodate our Interim Pres.
Harbaugh: For better or worse students care about athletics, pay a lot for it, give them a voice. Want at least one revenue player on the committee, they are pretty busy earning Mullens’s paycheck for him and can’t always make the meetings, need a backup.
Bonine: Also puzzled by how much time Berdahl’s spent on this, but will vote against it just to avoid further embarrassment to him.
Eckstein, Khalsa, others: Students want a voice, will participate.
Motion voted down, 7 to 13.
Student Conduct Code; Shabd Khalsa, Student Conduct and Community Standards Committee (chair designee)
Changes that will give students sensible rights in grievance committee.
Eveland: These are OAR changes and will be difficult!
Bonine: Not well prepared, table it, senate votes to table.
Stahl: Motion to require administrators acknowledge our shared governance constitution. Unanimous.
Keyes on union:
United Academics plans and info. Newsletter now published here. Looking for people who want to get involved, even if they were opposed. Forming working groups, call for volunteers. Work through summer. Membership drive will start while Tublitz is out of the country.
Berdahl: This means no contract til fall? Surprised. Shocked even. You only work 9 months out of the year? (What a pompous …)
Keyes: Stays calm, wins. Need to do this democratically. Berdahl angry and petty. Is this on video?
Harbaugh on Berdahl’s public records changes:
Since he’s just an Interim President Berdahl says is not willing to add one more student to the IAC – leave that for the next guy. But he’s quite happy to make a unilateral policy change restricting public records access. More on this later.
Vitulli: Are TRP faculty statutory faculty? Berdahl: Seems reasonable. Kyr: Matters for voting for Senate.
Berdahl made a good point about the union — angry, yes, but petty, no.
Would you mind to give more details on that “good point”?
The union has finally published the numbers for card check – by my math a majority of TTF opposed unionization. Am I missing something?
Yes, just as the Union FAQ say the union is made up of all faculty, the card check got a majority of all TTF faculty… because those TTF not in the bargaining unit apparently do not exist.
Sure. I think Peter actually made it for him. Peter said that in Oregon, process is our main product. Many who voted for the union were voting for an abstract change in process, i.e. a change in governance paradigms, rather than any concrete product, i.e. set of substantive economic, professional, or academic demands. Bob was understandably incredulous that a union would go to the trouble of organizing itself before determining what it actually stands for…and would then take the summer off in the middle of starting to try. Maybe Bob’s been away from Oregon too long to remember that what we care most about is slow, steady deliberation conducted with as much transparency and inclusion as is humanly possible, so that we minimize the chance of actually getting anything done and instead hog-tie anyone who presumes to try. Berdahl has perhaps spent too much time living among left-wingers in Berkeley and right-wingers in Texas — two places that, however great their differences, are more similar to each other than they are to us in that people who live there by and large actually stand for *something*.
I looked at the newsletter. It is unfortunate that the type of micromanaging I would loathe to see here is listed as “exciting CBA idea #1”. “We’re not limited to what’s been accomplished at other campuses, but looking at other faculty union contracts is a place to start. For example, both Penn State and York University (Canada) negotiated course release for supervising a certain number of MA and PhD students. Their contracts clearly recognize how much work this supervision truly entails, and they create an incentive to provide higher quality mentoring of graduate students. Penn State’s contract caps how many student teachers one faculty member in the Education Program should supervise, with additional pay required for supervision above that total.”
There is such a huge disparity between departments and faculty within a department about what it entails to supervise a graduate student it is hard to imagine how a broad policy could implement this fairly rather than ask how teaching and research are credited at the departmental level.
Prexy was pulling Peter’s leg. Peter did not recognize that, but handled the situation well anyway.
I love the idea that being on the asking end of a public records quest creates a conflict of interest, but having records requests asked of you apparently does not.
you have a keen eye for hypocrisy. nice point.
If you don’t want to deal with the embedded player, the direct url for the video is http://is-cc-media.uoregon.edu/media/FACSEN/2012/facsen_5_9_audiofix_lo.mp4
The response to the rather petty “well, if the students aren’t showing up…” argument makes for good entertainment.