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Updates: Senate March 13: Agenda and Live-Blog

Last updated on 04/20/2014

Synopsis: Most of the Senate meeting time was spent doing things the administration should have been doing, but hasn’t:

  • Senate votes to do Interim Provost Jim Bean’s job for him one last time, and evaluate the performance of VPRI Kimberly Espy’s office. Report by May. Gottfredson approves of the measure, and promises to dock Bean’s pay and split it among the committee members as administrative stipends.
  • Senate votes to set up an actual committee to look at applicants before President Gottfredson appoints a new interim provost. 
  • No motion is filed for a vote of no confidence in GC Randy Geller – as of yet.

Prologue: Lots of interesting stuff: Evaluation of Espy’s office, Provost search process, CoC denies Law CnC and CRES courses. Gottfredson’s out of town, no Bean. Presumably Kyr will talk about governance issues. I’ll live blog.

Disclaimer: This is my opinion of what people said, were thinking but didn’t say, or should have said. Nothing is a quote unless in quotes.

Live-blog: I missed the first part, filled in by a helpful guest-blogger.

Senate Meeting Agenda – March 13, 2013

2012-2013
Agendas

Knight Library Room 101, 3:00‐5:00 pm
3:00 pm 1. Call to Order
1.1 Approval of the Minutes of the February 13, 2013 Senate Meeting

3:05 pm 2. State of the University
2.1 Remarks by Robert Kyr, Senate President

Shortest update ever?  Gottfredson schedule conflict.  Bean is
obviously no stand in, so they found a conflict for him, too.
Kyr introduces people to some new “big ideas.”  Scratch that.  I meant
“big changes”
– do not stand when you make comments. stay seated.
– do not read/write email.  keep your head up.
– do not grumble, or otherwise utter sub-vocalizations
– speakers list introduced.  look at Margie, the list manager
– trust that senate operated on Robert’s Rules.  no conversation about
process (which is, of course, a per se violation of robert’s rules,
no?)

3:15 pm 3. New Business

3.1 Winter Curriculum Report (Motion for Legislation): Paul Engelking, Chair;
Committee on Courses

Winter curriculum: from visitor’s mike… weird.

3.2 Motion (Resolution): Senate Support for the Addition of an Ombuds Office
at the UO; Emilio Hernandez, Chair; Senate Ad Hoc Committee on Respectful
Workplace

Support for Ombuds office, or Obmuds if taken as written on the slide:
No mention of specifics on money.  Jamie Moffitt assures that it is a
cost savings.  No citation of research that supports this.  Implicitly
we just trust her.  Kassia takes the floor to tell everyone that she
supports it.  (Looking for an admin job, are we?)
Hubin: “Pres Gottfredson wants to get this done.” Details will be worked out. Ombud will report directly to Pres. Emami: Can the Senate bring this forward without a financial impact statement? Hubin: This is a resolution encouraging admin to make a decision. Advisory only.
Approved with one nay.

3.3 Motion (Legislation): Clarifying the Wording of UO Diplomas;
John Bonine, Professor (Law) & UO Senator

Altmann speaks in support, good for international students. Sample diplomas here. Bonine: Common at other AAU institutions. Prevents people from claiming “I’m no economist” when in fact their PhD outs them as exactly that. Passes unanimously.

3.4 Motion (Legislation): Establishment of a Provost Search Process;
Bill Harbaugh, (Economics) & UO Senator

Kyr reads the motion: “The university administration and the Senate Executive Review Committee are currently drafting recommendations for a formal policy for faculty input into the hiring of executive administrators, to be adopted by UO (as specified by US12/13-03: Faculty Input into Hiring Executive Administrators). However, the position of Provost will become vacant as of July 1, 2013. The university needs a process to involve faculty in the selection of a permanent Provost and an interim Provost. This motion gives the University President the Senate’s recommendation regarding this process.” 

Harbaugh advocates. Kyr says yes, Pres Gottfredson supports this. Sinclair: Tenure track members too? Harbaugh: OK with me. Kalsa: Amend to add another NTTF. Bonine: How many are we going to add? Long back and forth on adding another OA. Sullivan: Can we call this a resolution instead of legislation? Harbaugh: Yes. Martinez makes point that it already includes three OA’s. Amendment to add another OA passes. Motion passes unanimously.

3.5 Motion (Legislation): Senate-Administration Joint Review of the Office of
Research & Innovation (RIGE); Bill Harbaugh, Professor (Economics) &
UO Senator.

Kyr: Supported by Pres Gottfredson.
Harbaugh: “This committee could recommend to President Gottfredson that UO needs a new VP for Research.”
Ed Kamenui: Chair of the RAP report, points out the extent of the work involved in review, encourages committee to build on the RAP report. Of course the Senate was never shown that report… Martinez: Broad charge – good idea? Back and forth. The COE people are trying to stall, but fail.

After the fact, Anon posts this:

Here’s the membership of the search committee that hired KE, as noted in an email from Bean dated 6/16/2010. Interesting that 2 of the 3 RAP committee members had earlier been on the search committee (with one of them as the chair), putting them in a clear conflict of interest. 

Colleagues: 

We have formed a search committee and chosen a search firm for the Vice President for Research position from which Rich Linton has indicated his intent to step down. 

Search Committee 

Geri Richmond, chair
Betsy Boyd
Frances Bronet
Kathy Cashman
Frances Dyke
Michael Hames-Garcia
Ed Kameenui
Moire Kilte
Sandi Morgen
Patrick Phillips 

A selection committee of Geri Richmond, Beverlee Stillwell and myself have chosen Kim Morrisson of Diversified Search to assist us. Kim ran the VP Development search this year that brought us Mike Andreason from Michigan. We will communicate more on timelines and format when appropriate. 

Please let me know if you have any questions.
Regards, Jim
James C. Bean
Senior Vice President and Provost

 Motion passes unanimously with 5 abstentions. Espy has some friends, but not the sort of friends willing to go on record.

4:40 pm 4. Open Discussion

none?

4:40 pm 5. Reports

5.1 Summary of Reports and Postings; Robert Kyr, Senate President

Kyr: Be on alert, you will get these as emails and online. Senate will deal with Geller crap in April: legal services, etc.

4:55 pm 6. Announcements and Communications from the Floor

6.1 Notice of Motion (Resolution): Comparator Study of Senate Agenda Time;
Christopher Sinclair (Mathematics), UO Senator

WTF?

Will Steiner: Efficiency of meetings. Invites Senators to sit in on a nine hour ASUO meeting, starts tonight at 6 in the Walnut room. Sorry, I’ve got a worrying hot-tub malfunction to investigate.

5:00 pm 7. Adjournment:

3 minutes early! Senate kicks administration’s ass, with 3 minutes left on clock.

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