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Oregon Bach Festival to name new exec director

That’s the rumor from Bob Keefer’s Eugene Art Talk, here.

Also see his post on the closing of the Jacobs Art Gallery, here.

8 Comments

  1. motheaten 12/10/2015

    UO Matters – what do you make of the beleaguered interim Dean of by far the largest School at this university, telling his department heads just yesterday “the tsunami is coming” – “there will be in the immediate future some layoffs”, dismantlings, because the new President’s delight for saying we will have new faculty lines – he has never figured he should try to figure how to pay for. I know we are all tired of failed presidents – but this one is a queen bee – convinced he can just say what he wants and it will happen. The cost for this promise is right now being shoved back down to cuts in infrastructure, particularly, in CAS, it’s no secret – every single vacancy – faculty or classified or other, is now under scrutiny.
    “The tsunami is coming.” From a geologist fatefully interim Dean who was not blithely picking a random metaphor – he knows what that means over the long term.

  2. honest Uncle Bernie 12/14/2015

    Regardless of who is chosen as new exec director of the Bach Festival, Michael Anderson has done an outstanding job as interim director! I would be happy to see him continue as director. I have no idea whether he has wanted that job, but thanks to him for his excellent work in keeping the Bach Festival going.

  3. honest Uncle Bernie 12/14/2015

    It is becoming clear that CAS and UO do not have the money for expansion. The cluster hire plan is turning into a fiasco, with money being taken from extant programs to fund “prima donna” slots in a rather irrational, centralized way that will lead to much turmoil and strife down the line. The attempts by the provost and others to explain what they are doing just makes me, and a lot of other people, more skeptical.

    I had much hope for President Mike, but he doesn’t seem to have been able to “bring home the bacon,” and now what we have seems to be being misdirected in misguided endeavors.

    • uomatters Post author | 12/14/2015

      Can you give us any more specifics?

  4. honest Uncle Bernie 12/14/2015

    Well, they are apparently going ahead with one or two unfunded hires in the face of budget cuts in CAS, and apparent staff reductions, if rumors are to be believed.

    Furthermore, the cluster hires are to be centrally controlled, with funding passing back to the provost if a cluster hire leaves. The people in charge of cluster hiring are acting somewhat independently of departments. Friction is already evident.

    And — there apparently is an expectation that the cluster funds will enable reduced teaching loads for both senior and junior cluster hires, beyond what new hires already may get through departments. In my opinion, there are already more than enough people who do little or no teaching, and plenty more who get a “buy out” from grants so that departments end up hiring adjuncts and others to do their teaching work.

    Creating a new class of special professors solely because they are part of a “cluster” program (which I have never thought was a good idea) strikes me as a damaging and unproductive way to go.

    • Oryx 12/14/2015

      Well put. This should get its own thread, not be buried under Bach festival news.

  5. Anonymous 12/16/2015

    In the late 1950’s, the UO conceived of a “cluster” in the nascent field of Molecular Biology. They formalized the effort as an Institute in which members were 1/2 time in a Department (Bio, Chem or Physics) and 1/2 time in the Graduate School. Undergraduate instruction was carried out in the Department, at 1/2 the “load” of regular Department Faculty. The strong candidate for directorship held out for four positions (in addition to himself). The situation was then so attractive (in terms of the promise of like-minded colleagues, quality of the CAS (CLA at that time), livability of the locale, that the positions were fillable with good people. Once Molecular Biology was securely established, the Members voted to become full-time members of their respective Departments. The AAU soon recognized the University’s strength as a research university.
    For Clusters to have the same success, strong funding (plus some good luck) will help, as will the livability (perhaps more so than ever) of Oregon. In the late ’50’s, funding for research came from DC, which currently prefers to spend its dollars on bombs.

  6. motheaten 12/16/2015

    “Apparent staff reductions, if rumors are to be believed” – the rumors can be believed. The directive driving current and future CAS staff hires at OA and classified levels is to cut where possible so the new initiative to hire TTF can be achieved. I’ve been in at least two meetings where that was the rationale on offer. Of course nobody wants to say it quite this clearly – but that is what is happening. What worries me is how the TTF cluster hires reward high attraction rates (which is good) at the expense of support staff (which is not good) for both large and small departments that can never compete.

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