While the once mighty Duck sports enterprise has been reduced to using UO Foundation money to lobby Oregon’s politicians for a million in lottery money here, $25M in lodging taxes there, the University of Oregon’s librarians, led by Dean Adrienne Lim, have brought in $36M in voluntary charitable contributions to pay for stuff that Oregon’s legislature doesn’t care about. Like books. The Daily Emerald has the story here.
There was a time when the Ducks contributed $50K a year to the library. That ended under AD Rob Mullens, who apparently had higher priorities.
And of course the librarians also beat the Ducks when it comes to giving:
Duck coaches say “Bah, humbug” to state’s Charitable Fund Drive
12/24/2015: Altruism takes many forms, some easier to measure than others.
Every year the state of Oregon runs a Charitable Fund Drive for employees. You know the drill. You get a few emails asking you to sign up for payroll deductions to support community groups like the United Way, Food For Lane County, Womenspace, and so on. This year’s drive is wrapping up, if you haven’t given yet you can do it here.
While some people object to being asked to give at work, on the plus side you can decide which state and local charities will get your money, you don’t get a lot of junk mail, and the charities don’t have to spend money soliciting donors.
And since every UO employee gets basically the same emails about the CFD and has similar incentives, donations are a convenient if imperfect measure for comparing altruistic behavior.
So, who gives? The CFD doesn’t report individual data, but it does post giving by department, here. This year, as usual, the UO Business School and the librarians are big donors. Journalism was also very generous:
The Duck Athletic Department? Not so much:
Which seems a little stingy, given the fat raises that Scott Coltrane gave Rob Mullens and the football coaches this year. Duck Advocate Tobin Klinger reports, in Around the O:
Interestingly, Rob Mullens and the Duck coaches are devoted to the idea of encouraging their unpaid student-athletes to do community service, in-between their classes, practice, weightlifting, studying, travel, and game days. The program is called “O’Heroes”:
My understanding is that O Heroes awards points to the players, based on how many charitable events they participate in. Duck strategic communicator Craig Pintens then hypes the events in press releases and on “Around the 0”, as here. The players can cash their points in for things like airfare from the “Student Assistance Fund” so their parents can get a chance to watch them play.
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