Last updated on 02/24/2016
In a nutshell, the CAS budget cuts that are now happening are in part because of side payments to Law and AAA agreed to by Interim Provost Scott Coltrane, the day before he took over as Interim President from Mike Gottfredson, and 6 months after Interim CAS Dean Andrew Marcus warned Coltrane about the coming CAS budget train wreck.
These payments total about $3M a year, and include $500K a year to AAA while it tried to “increase revenue streams through new program development (e.g., Product Design program).” This seems to be in addition to the $450K start-up and $140K recurring that came for Sports Product Management and Design through the “Budget Advisory Group”, documented here, plus other costs such as Jim Bean’s salary.
Page down for the most recent data I have on the overall budget model allocations, from the FY ending June 2014. All quite confusing. I wonder who really knows what’s going on here?
It took me a public records request and more than two weeks to get these records from the UO administration – but at least they waived the fees, unlike with the Track Town records.
$10M for Law:
$5.3M for AAA:
Full pdf’s here, including one showing some relaxation of the CAS budget cuts that resulted from the budget model changes. The most recent documentation I have on the overall budget model is from 2014. Brad Shelton said at the SBC meeting earlier this week that he will provide an update.
“an appropriate pay-back plan”. Bad loan rolled over to make the bank look solvent. Classic audit flag. If we had auditors.
AAD’s 250-252 undergrad credit hours almost doubled from 1,330 to 2,630 from last fall to this. http://ir.uoregon.edu/budget
So AAD could CAS back with the millions in easy budget model money they’ll bring in from offering online, un-proctored Gen-Ed classes where 66% of the students “earn” A’s. In the process dumbing down our students’ education and forcing cuts in real CAS humanities classes.
Law undergrad courses are more rigorous than AAD – what isn’t – but they’ve also increased from 420 to 1056 undergrad SCH, after a big drop from the cancelled sports conflict courses.
Coltrane needs help: the typeface on these MOUs is hideous.
He had more than a little help. It’s a proprietary font that we paid a ton of money for. Part of our branding.
Sorry, Uh, that’s not the proprietary font we paid a ton of money for. Probably just some font he saw on his computer that he liked.
I think this is the very manifestation of a ZERO SUM game.
I’m no game theorist but I’ve co-authored with one, and you are correct.
Stanford says they’ll teach people to change the world, UO says we’ll teach people to design shoes. Where would you give your money?
Interest rates are zero. The law school should borrow from OCCU instead of CAS.
The risk premium on the loan could be substantial – given their law rankings/ratings…
dog to UOmatters
thanks for the link to the Sept 2 Memo from Coltrane to Markus –
I had not seen that before and that helps to explain a little of what has gone on recently. And, of course, by all means, reducing GTF stipends is a way out of this ….
to UOmatters
yes: thanks for the link to the Sept 2 Memo from Coltrane to Marcus.
I would like to know what the Provost has in mind when he writes that he will be leading the effort to develop “a more centrally managed system for hiring faculty and staff to promote academic excellence.” This post is post the expensive cluster initiatives. What next?
Any chance there’s a clause redirecting the money back to CAS if our VP for Finance’s husband steps down as Dean of the Law School?
That’s snarky. I’d make another public records request, but it took 2 weeks just to get what I’ve posted.
Bailouts of the law school have resulted from the decreasing enrollments in the law school.
Bailouts of AAA have resulted from decreasing enrollments in AAA.
CAS cuts have been justified as resulting from the decreasing enrollments in humanities and social sciences.
So in other words, some units get rescued in times of enrollment crisis, and others get to do the rescuing and then get cut.
Coltrane’s responses to Bill Harbaugh’s questions about this in the Senate last Wednesday (Feb. 24th) were bizarre and incomprehensible. He seemed to be repeatedly denying the content of language which he himself wrote, or at least signed. This whole things looks like a scam.
once again
this would be ZERO SUM (and certainly silly)
Surely you’re not suggesting that academic priorities should drive budgets, instead of v.v.?