In his academic work, Scott Coltrane has been a leader in identifying the benefits of family-friendly workplace policies. What leadership has he shown at UO?
Pro Provost
12/29/2013
He brought Joan Williams to UO to speak to dept heads in CAS. He has sought time and again to create better situations for dual career couples. It’s not his fault that Sharon Rudnick et al almost tried to run through a new baby leave policy that could only apply to one person of a couple who were both faculty. My guess is that Provost Coltrane was pretty upset with his own team on that one.
uomattersPost author | 12/29/2013
Coltrane has to take charge. That’s a tough job, the old guard is well entrenched and he is just interim provost. Or maybe he just doesn’t have the fight in him. There are some glimmers of hope though, or at least that’s what administrators keep telling me.
dog
12/29/2013
There is a hidden assumption in this, like many similar statements posted here over the years, and that assumption is that its possible to “take charge” at the UO.
Because the UO has been so decentralized (since 1997 and to the point of being dysfunctional IMHO) there really is, IMSNFHO, nothing to “take charge” of.
uomattersPost author | 12/29/2013
Nobody said parenting was easy.
anonymous
12/29/2013
I am sick and tired of this argument. I am done hearing about how our senior administrators have the best intentions but are constrained by those around them / working behind the scenes / secretly upset with the behaviors of those under their supervision. I have heard this argument about Gottfredson, I have heard it about Coltrane, I have heard it about Espy, and you can keep going down the line.
Provost is nominally the second most powerful job at the university. Scott Coltrane is getting paid $327,000 to do it. If he cannot “take charge” of anything, not even stopping negotiators under his supervision from proposing a regressive leave policy that runs contrary to his life’s work, then he’s not fit to keep the job.
uomattersPost author | 12/29/2013
Well said.
dog
12/30/2013
1. Its very hard to take charge if you don’t have an initiative budget to assist in this. Much of the constraints are not individual personalities but actual structural budget issues. We have had a budgeting process for about the last 20 years that has never been in the best interest of the “University” but always caters to the interest or legacy of individual academic units. In part this is a response to 1990 measure 5 but at some point, you have to evolve.
2. To anon: please provide a checklist of bullet points that would actually manifest charge taken. What would that look like?
Here is one small example:
Get rid of the FPC – immediate revolt from the faculty that will no longer feel included – yet changing the structure in a more efficient way since a) our tenure rate is well about 90% for the last 10 years so why do we need an FPC? b) greatly streamline the time line for promotion decisions.
All this came to an absurdity a few years ago when Tenure decisions were not announced until June 14 and the tenure rate was 100% – now that’s efficiency!
Marlon
12/29/2013
“You spend time with your faculty? Because a president who doesn’t spend time with his faculty can never be a real president.”
Hi. Working mom with a great publishing record and a toddler here. Would like to point out the huge, absurd gap between the formal ”work-life balance speak” we hear at the UO and actual reality, in which new mothers get jack shit from the uo. Especially from a certain lady who’s job is ‘work-life balance’. HA! all new mothers beware: there will be no help/support for you whatsoever. and THAT is what needs to be advertised. A classic UOadmin: all utopia-talk, no actual $$$ support.
In his academic work, Scott Coltrane has been a leader in identifying the benefits of family-friendly workplace policies. What leadership has he shown at UO?
He brought Joan Williams to UO to speak to dept heads in CAS. He has sought time and again to create better situations for dual career couples. It’s not his fault that Sharon Rudnick et al almost tried to run through a new baby leave policy that could only apply to one person of a couple who were both faculty. My guess is that Provost Coltrane was pretty upset with his own team on that one.
Coltrane has to take charge. That’s a tough job, the old guard is well entrenched and he is just interim provost. Or maybe he just doesn’t have the fight in him. There are some glimmers of hope though, or at least that’s what administrators keep telling me.
There is a hidden assumption in this, like many similar statements posted here over the years, and that assumption is that its possible to “take charge” at the UO.
Because the UO has been so decentralized (since 1997 and to the point of being dysfunctional IMHO) there really is, IMSNFHO, nothing to “take charge” of.
Nobody said parenting was easy.
I am sick and tired of this argument. I am done hearing about how our senior administrators have the best intentions but are constrained by those around them / working behind the scenes / secretly upset with the behaviors of those under their supervision. I have heard this argument about Gottfredson, I have heard it about Coltrane, I have heard it about Espy, and you can keep going down the line.
Provost is nominally the second most powerful job at the university. Scott Coltrane is getting paid $327,000 to do it. If he cannot “take charge” of anything, not even stopping negotiators under his supervision from proposing a regressive leave policy that runs contrary to his life’s work, then he’s not fit to keep the job.
Well said.
1. Its very hard to take charge if you don’t have an initiative budget to assist in this. Much of the constraints are not individual personalities but actual structural budget issues. We have had a budgeting process for about the last 20 years that has never been in the best interest of the “University” but always caters to the interest or legacy of individual academic units. In part this is a response to 1990 measure 5 but at some point, you have to evolve.
2. To anon: please provide a checklist of bullet points that would actually manifest charge taken. What would that look like?
Here is one small example:
Get rid of the FPC – immediate revolt from the faculty that will no longer feel included – yet changing the structure in a more efficient way since a) our tenure rate is well about 90% for the last 10 years so why do we need an FPC? b) greatly streamline the time line for promotion decisions.
All this came to an absurdity a few years ago when Tenure decisions were not announced until June 14 and the tenure rate was 100% – now that’s efficiency!
“You spend time with your faculty? Because a president who doesn’t spend time with his faculty can never be a real president.”
Hi. Working mom with a great publishing record and a toddler here. Would like to point out the huge, absurd gap between the formal ”work-life balance speak” we hear at the UO and actual reality, in which new mothers get jack shit from the uo. Especially from a certain lady who’s job is ‘work-life balance’. HA! all new mothers beware: there will be no help/support for you whatsoever. and THAT is what needs to be advertised. A classic UOadmin: all utopia-talk, no actual $$$ support.