Office of Resilience used CAS faculty as unwitting, unpaid test subjects for consulting company

Unpaid isn’t quite the right word though. Apparently Le Duc paid the consultants. This is nuts. Chief Resilience Officer Andre Le Duc:

… The project we are doing with CAS is a pilot project designed to test the tool at a US university.  Resilient Organizations has been using the benchmark tool in New Zealand and Australia for nearly a decade. …

Prof Michael Hames-Garcia had this to say to Resilient Organizations, Ltd:

From: MHG <[email protected]>
Date: Thursday, 8 November 2018 at 10:44 AM
To: Kaylene Sampson <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: Reminder: We want your opinion

I won’t be replying to this [survey request] because it is the most absurd waste of time and money I have ever seen at this university. I know all of my colleagues feel similarly.

Michael

While “absurd” was not one of the allowable survey responses in the 12 pages of questions I managed to get through, Michael seems to have struck a nerve with the consultant:

From: Kaylene Sampson <[email protected]
Sent: November 7, 2018 1:48:30 PM PST
To: MHG <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: Reminder: We want your opinion

Hi Michael,

Thanks for your feedback. [see below]. It’s unfortunate that you view the efforts of the office of Safety and Risk Services in such a light. I can assure you that the College is not funding this project, but rather it is being run from the budget of that office – I’d be happy to connect you with the right people to speak to, in order to clarify that, should you wish to do so.

In the meantime, we would still value your opinion. It’s important that all views are captured, and it seems like you have some strong ones that are equally as valid.

Thanks for your time,

Kaylene Sampson, Senior Research Consultant, w: www.resorgs.org.nz

So LeDuc’s office is paying these consultants *and* allowing them to use us as their guinea pigs? Wow. In any case I’ve filed a complaint with the UO’s Internal Auditor, asking her to look into the potential conflicts of interest with this survey and provide guidance on how to avoid this in the future. I received this response:

Hi Bill,

Thanks for following up.  I do acknowledge receipt of the email below.  Our office’s process for investigation is to first identify criteria (gain an understanding of policies, procedures, laws, etc. that identify the expectation for how a process should work).  We also gain an understanding of what is actually happening and report on the gaps.  Any areas where there is no criteria, we still try to apply the ‘best practice’ approach to provide guidance to the unit.  Hope this helps.

Thanks,

Trisha Burnett, CPA, CIA, CFE, Chief Auditor | Office of Internal Audit

What is Internal Audit? Check out this message from President Schill: https://internalaudit.uoregon.edu/

10/23/2018: Chief Resiliency Officer Andre Le Duc has too much money

Today I and all other CAS employees got an email from some consultant in NZ asking me to respond to a “CAS Resiliency Survey.” I ignored this, until getting a follow-up email from CAS, at which point I clicked on the link. This was a mistake.

This survey, commissioned by UO Associate VP and Chief Resiliency Officer Andre Le Duc, is a bureaucratic classic. I confess that I’ve only answered about 100 of the questions so far. Even with random clicks it’s a serious time commitment. There are a lot of boxes, none particularly relevant to CAS or UO. Le Duc won’t spend his time writing thoughtful questions, but he will ask you to spend yours answering pointless ones.

So I thought I’d take a break and post my response to the only written question: