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To Gottfredson, Bean is worth more than faculty excellence

3/17/2013. VPAA Doug Blandy announces UO’s faculty excellence awards:

Subject: deans-dirs: Announcing Fund for Faculty Excellence Awards 2013-14
Date: March 15, 2013 4:06:02 PM PDT
To: “Deans-Dirs List ([email protected])” <[email protected]> 

After successfully rebuilding the Fund for Faculty Excellence Awards program last year, we are pleased to announce that the nomination period for 2013-14 recipients has been launched.  The Fund for Faculty Excellence will provide one-time awards of $20,000 to tenured faculty who have distinguished themselves in research, teaching, and leadership.  Up to thirteen awards will be made this spring by the Provost based on recommendations of a panel of outstanding senior faculty from nominations forwarded by the academic deans.  The awards will be announced by the end of this academic year.  A detailed announcement is attached.

Doug Blandy
Senior Vice Provost
Academic Affairs
541-346-3029
[email protected]

Thirteen awards, $20K each, $260K total. For a comparison, Lariviere was willing to spend about $300K for interim Provost Jim Bean’s sabbatical:


But all indications are that rather than send Bean back to the faculty next year, Gottfredson is going to pay him his full $320K provost’s salary, in exchange for some administrative sinecure.

The economists call this revealed preference. Don’t ask people what they care about, they will lie. Look at how they spend their our student’s tuition money:

Next year Mike Gottfredson will spend $60,000 more on Jim Bean than he will on faculty excellence.

UO is that fucked up. But wait, there’s more! Read the fine print: Jim Bean decides who gets an excellence award.

11 Comments

  1. Anonymous 03/17/2013

    You’re a hater, Harbaugh. You got nothin’ but hate.

    Maybe you should consider focusing on your research and teaching students?

    • Anonymous 03/17/2013

      Even if your position was well founded, you’ve failed to recognize that by not hating these sorts of excesses yourself you reveal a certain love for them. I’d rather side with the haters of excess, inefficiency, and cronyism than with their lovers.

    • Anonymous 03/18/2013

      Take the money and keep your mouth shut Jim.

  2. Anonymous 03/18/2013

    I nominate Bill Harbaugh of Economics. I would also like to recommend him for a well deserved sabbatical, to be used to brush up on his skills and research the economics of selling out a public trust and common wealth, an investment by the citizens of Oregon of over 130 years, a Public University, and visit old friends in a field.

    • Anonymous 03/18/2013

      With scotch.

    • Anonymous 03/18/2013

      That you do not diminish the play this statement gets is more confusing than anything else, Jim. A Provost’s official justification for sabbatical should not be so easily modified. You’re “visiting old friends?” What an embarrassment.

      Didn’t JH employ handlers for JIm when he was in office?

    • UO Matters 03/18/2013

      Rumor has it that Bean’s sabbatical was approved by an irregular committee that included faculty, presumably happy to think that he’d never be coming back as Provost.

      Berdahl not only brought him back, he gave him a 2 year contract. We really have to watch what President’s do in their last few months!

      Gottfredson should show some stones here. Pay Bean his money – it’s a contract – but get him out of Johnson Hall ASAP and make him teach, like Lariviere did with Grier.

  3. Anonymous 03/18/2013

    The union sure has Blandy panicked – he hasn’t even changed the dates on the web page yet.

  4. Anonymous 03/18/2013

    Maybe it’s a plot to pile a bunch of awards and resume padding on Bean so he can get a cushy job somewhere else. He won’t be our problem anymore!

    • Anonymous 03/18/2013

      Nah. If Bean was competent, he would have already made a successful exit. That he would return to the faculty–by his own admission his research is out of date even though he had the opportunity to visit friends–among whom he has very little respect is a sure sign of failure. If there is a plot afoot, it is more likely one of pity. Spare him from further ridicule sort of thing, to assure future admins that they will be taken care of.

      I’ve heard rumor that Jim will start up his own blog, at BigJimsSmallIdeas.com

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