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Gottfredson gives powerful statement supporting transparency and faculty role in finance and athletics

8/22/2013: This is great news. I know some skeptics will say these are just words, but they are powerful ones, made with force and commitment. For me, this goes a long way towards erasing many of the concerns that the faculty and the press have been raising about President Gottfredson’s leadership, and the direction he has been taking UO. Quoting:

Proper shared governance expects competency and places responsibility for the nature and care of the central mission of the university with the faculty. … In my view, the administrative governance responsibilities only work when important policies and practices are informed by consultation and advice from the faculty, staff and students. Such consultation and advice can only be meaningful if it takes place in a spirit of transparency and knowledge and in a timely manner. There’s not much use in consulting after the fact – or not much use consistent with these ideas of governance, anyway. 

So there’s an essential advisory role for the senate, even on administrative matters – an essential role on those matters that are central to the execution of our mission, like budget and finance, space and capital planning, athletics and of course participation in the selection and the evaluation of academic administrators.

Full text on the President’s website, here.

Oh wait, never mind. This is from Gottfredson’s introductory speech to the Senate, last October. Turns out he didn’t mean it.

18 Comments

  1. Anonymous 08/23/2013

    FYI, Gottfredson is actually working tirelessly behind the scenes on ensuring UO’s success long term. Stop your bitching.

    • Anonymous 08/23/2013

      Evidence? Any?

      My paycheck hasn’t improved. My classes are larger. My research support is smaller. My colleagues are fewer. My union dues are higher.

    • Anonymous 08/23/2013

      We should all be concluding right about now that MG’s “behind the scenes” efforts are unfruitful.

    • Anonymous 08/23/2013

      It must have required some real behind the scenes wizardry to get poor Jim to take that 320k/year consolation prize after being removed for his failures as a provost. That’s a sign of a leader who can make the hard decisions.

    • Anonymous 08/23/2013

      Wait, Anonymous #1 is paying union dues? And they have gone up? Which union is this?

    • UO Matters 08/23/2013

      Biggest mistake: Keeping HLGR and Rudnick to bargain after they’d been hired to fight unionization, and failed. Rudnick and the union both came in hating each other. It was an easily predictable disaster, but Gott walked into it like a blind man, then left Randy Geller to try and calm the waters. OK, maybe not firing Geller was a bigger mistake.

    • Anonymous 08/23/2013

      Geller is a nematode. Backing Espy means more in terms of harm to science. She drove off some good faculty, now she is tightening her grip, the PI exodus is growing, she’ll end up with even more power. Vicious feedback loop.

    • Rudy Crew 08/23/2013

      The Gov and the legislators don’t care about your nematode administrators, even if you do have to pay them $320K to sit in the rubber room for a year. But they’ll never forget that “University of Nike” thing.

  2. Old Man 08/23/2013

    UOM says ” Turns out he didn’t mean it.” This Old Man says you can know Mike’s intentions better when the Senate brings substantive legislation in those areas. The coming year could be definitive, but only if the Faculty uses the Constitutional process to forward its views.

  3. Cassandra 08/23/2013

    Gottfredson is out of his depth. I’m sure he wanted to mean these things. But he doesn’t seem to know how to implement them, especially in the face of intractable opposition from inside Johnson Hall. And since he never leaves the bunker, he no longer has much grasp on reality outside it. So now he neither means them nor remembers why, a year ago, he wanted to.

    The leadership vacuum at the top is huge. We are in very deep trouble.

    • Old Man 08/23/2013

      Here I am again. So, the Faculty must lead, and it can do so through the channel provided by the Constitution. Yes, it’s hard work, but keep your eyes on the prize: a University we can be proud of.

    • UO Matters 08/23/2013

      Gottfredson won’t even tell the Senate the budget projections. He’s done nothing to implement to Espy or Athletic Subsidy resolutions. The new policy on faculty input into administrative reviews is stalled. He didn’t even ask the Senate for input into his April performance review, in fact he didn’t even tell us OUS was reviewing him. I’m not seeing a lot of respect for the Constitution here, Cato the elder!

    • Old Man 08/23/2013

      Dear UOM, your mention of the constitution leads me to believe that your comment beginning “Gottfredson won’t even tell the Senate the budget projections” was meant as a reply to my Comment, rather than that of Cassandra. In either case, I’d like to raise some questions regarding it. Recall that the purpose of the Constitution was to create a process that allows the Senate (as the Faculty’s work-a-day governing body) to hold the President’s feet to the fire. (It was created in response to a painful period in which the characteristic Presidential MO was to ignore the Senate.) The implication of this characterization of the Constitution is that Presidents tend to be like that, and, if the Faculty identifies a particular need, they can expect to get a remedy only if it is called for through the Constitutional process.
      Now, in your litany below, it is not clear to me that the UO President has violated any Constitutional provision. Of course, I could be wrong and would be grateful if you were to correct me.
      1. “Gottfredson won’t even tell the Senate the budget projections.” Has the Senate called upon the President for a copy of his budget projections? I do not recall such a Senate discussion, motion, or vote (but, I remind you, that Old Man is getting older by the day). If there was such a Senate action, can you direct me to the relevant URL?
      . 2. “He’s done nothing to implement to Espy (sic) or Athletic Subsidy resolutions.” For Senate Resolutions, Mike’s Constitutional obligation is to respond to the Resolution. I do not recall a response to an “Espy” Resolution, but Mike did respond to the “Athletic Subsidy” resolution. Has he done nothing to implement his response? Is immediate implementation important?
      Re Espy: How do we know that Mike has done nothing regarding such a resolution? If implementation required creation of a Committee, he may have done that. If the Committee has not begun its work, could it be because its members are not on campus? Re. Athletic Subsidy: If Mike’s response to the Resolution was unsatisfactory, perhaps Senator Harbaugh will introduce Legislation calling for an end to the subsidies that UOM has so industriously identified. Passage of such a Motion would get the issue back on a Constitutional track. It might even score!
      . 3. “The new policy on faculty input into administrative reviews is stalled.” I note that the first step in implementation of that Legislation is appointment by the Senate President of an ad hoc committee of UO faculty and Senate constituents. In the second step, President Gottfredson was to appoint 2 administrators or staff to this committee. Can UOM tell us where the process is stalled? Did the Senate President, in fact, create the Committee? Has the University President held things up by failing to appoint 2 members?
      . . 4. “He didn’t even ask the Senate for input into his April performance review, in fact he didn’t even tell us OUS was reviewing him.” It seems to me that the failure to get Faculty input was a failing of the OUS, not of the UO President.
      . 5. I’m not seeing a lot of respect for the Constitution here, Cato the elder!” Well, Junior, when you get some time in your busy and (and generally very productive) schedule, look more closely at the items above.
      . 




  4. depressive duck 08/23/2013

    Is it true that UO expects to get kicked out of the AAU soon?

    If I go to the UO web page, then “About UO” the AAU is not mentioned — it sure used to be.

    (There is the prominent claim that UO is “world-class” — my experience is that those who say they is, probably ain’t — and the boast that UO is the state’s “flagship” university — maybe a goad to OSU to get even more special subsidies to kick-start their research grant raising?)

    Getting kicked out of AAU would be a blow from which UO might never recover — maybe not even with the long-rumored but never materializing $2 bil from Uncle Phil.

    • UO Matters 08/23/2013

      A student journalist made a PR request for the AAU emails a while back. Hubin’s price was too high for them to pay. That usually means there’s something bad in the docs.

    • Anonymous 08/24/2013

      What kind of stupid logic is that??

    • Old Man 08/24/2013

      UOM should better have said, “That OFTEN means there is something bad in the docs.” As written, UOM appears to be claiming that he/she has data proving more than half the time hiding is the reason for the high price. But that is quibbling. The real problem here is that every time Lisa/Dave/Randy put a high p[rice on an item, folks will suspect the worst, and the UO Administrations loses credibility

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