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VP for Equity delays release of consultant info, wants to charge for docs

7/24/2017 update:

This university needs an effective office of Internal Audit to examine these sorts of bids. It took 5 weeks just to get an estimate from the VP for Equity and Diversity for the public records, and now the PRO refuses to waive their $114.62 fee:

07/21/2017

Dear Mr. Harbaugh:
The University of Oregon has received your public records request for “…a copy of all bids submitted in response to: RFQ for Executive Coaching Services Solicitation Number: PCS# 211000-00055-RFQ and emails between Michael Tani-Eshon or Yvette Alex-Assensoh and bidders or potential bidders regarding this RFQ” on 06/19/2017, attached.

The office estimates the actual cost of responding to your request to be $114.62. …

Thank you for contacting us with your request.

Sincerely,

Office of Public Records

publicrecords.uoregon.edu

7/10/2017 update: UO Matters saves UO $25K and an uncountable amount of administrative B.S.

Sometimes a simple question is all it takes. In an effort to find out more about the $25K buzzword consultant VPEI wanted to hire, I made this public records request on June 18th:

From: Bill Harbaugh <[email protected]>
Subject: PR request VPEI Coaching Services
Date: June 18, 2017 at 10:32:41 PM PDT
To: Lisa Thornton <[email protected]>
Cc: [email protected], Yvette M Alex-Assensoh <[email protected]>

Dear Ms Thornton –

This is a public records request for a copy of all bids submitted in response to:

RFQ for Executive Coaching Services
Solicitation Number: PCS# 211000-00055-RFQ
at https://pcs.uoregon.edu/content/business-opportunities

and emails between Michael Tani-Eshon or Yvette Alex-Assensoh and bidders or potential bidders regarding this RFQ. I’m ccing Mr. Tani-Eshon and VP Alex-Assensoh since they should have easy access to these public records.

I ask for a fee-waiver on the basis of public interest.

Thanks,

Bill Harbaugh
http://harbaugh.org

The public records office has sat on it for 3 weeks now, and hasn’t responded to my follow up, but the good news is that the request has already worked. As of July 6th, “THIS OPPORTUNITY IS CANCELLED”:

5/17/2017: Office of Equity and Inclusion searching for buzzword consultant

Nice to know that, after laying off 100 faculty, UO now has money to burn on a consulting firm to help with “executive trustbuilding”, “change management”, “active learning skills including paraphrasing” (that’s a direct quote) and “harnessing the power of culture to optimize outcomes“. $25K, or enough to pay for 4 Pathways scholarships. And it’s renewable:

 

 

9 Comments

  1. Anonymous 05/17/2017

    A lot of this sounds like stuff that managers are supposed to be doing for their employees already (insofar as it’s not businesspeak that sounds like nothing at all). If this is for middle tier staff, why aren’t their supervisors doing this enough for them already? And if this is for the top – do I remember right that Kimberly Espy’s departure was preceded by the hiring of an executive coach?

  2. consultants writing rfps 05/17/2017

    We couldn’t help but noticed you used a direct quote, you should consider coming to the paraphrasing workshop! Seriously though, all the consultant rfps are slightly better than past practice, which was Xxxx contracting out to her friends. Better still would be admins who knew how to do the work for themselves, but we’re still a long ways off from that.

    • UO Matters Post author | 05/17/2017

      Sorry, I’ll make time for that workshop. BTW, please don’t post claims that someone violated the conflict of interest policy unless you have documentation.

  3. Anonymous 05/17/2017

    So who got the contract?

    • UO Matters Post author | 05/17/2017

      You can bet I’ll be making a public records request for that information, and that UO’s Public Records Office will delay releasing it for as long as they possibly can. 10 days and counting on my previous request for UO’s payments to consultants.

      • Inquiring minds 07/25/2017

        Opportunity cancelled — contract not awarded.

  4. C1133 05/20/2017

    facilitative leadership?

  5. New Year Cat 07/10/2017

    Isn’t that all stuff (leaving out the b.s. stuff) that grown-ups who reach the level of these positions should already have learned how to do? Communicate, lead, all that? Why did we hire them if they still need to be coached on dealing with thinking about the future?

  6. anonymous 07/29/2017

    UO is shameful.

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