Last updated on 12/03/2018
Since the Board’s official website is an unhelpful mess, here are the times and agendas for the committee and board meetings Monday and Tuesday, along with a few excerpts and some commentary. All events in the Ford Alumni Center. Monday meetings start at 10:30, Tuesday at 10.
I’ll try and add a little live-blogging below, as the meetings progress. Meanwhile I’ll note that UO’s federal accreditors require the Board to conduct a self-study every two years:
2.A.8 The board regularly evaluates its performance to ensure its duties and responsibilities are fulfilled in an effective and efficient manner. http://www.nwccu.org/accreditation/standards-policies/standards/
While OSU’s board posts their evaluations on the internet, UO’s Board secretary Angela Wilhems is making me file a public records request to see UO’s.
Why?
10:30 AM Monday 12/3: Academic and Student Affairs Committee: https://trustees.uoregon.edu/sites/trustees2.uoregon.edu/files/meeting_packet_-_asac_12.03.18.pdf
Provost’s Quarterly Report
Provost Banavar gives the Senate and Sierra Dawson a shout-out on the Senate’s efforts to reform student evaluations, highlighting roll-out of our new non-metrics, and Ginger Clark’s (USC) talk to the Senate, here.
In other news, VP for Budget Planning will be retiring Jan 1 – but don’t get too excited, he’ll still be working half-time on budget planning etc.
1. Annual Enrollment and Financial Aid/Scholarship Report: Roger Thompson, Vice President for Student Services and Enrollment Management; Jim Brooks, Associate Vice President and Director of Financial Aid and Scholarships
For some reason Roger isn’t reporting SATs, or any info on our comparators. Spending on recruiting is way up – UO is hiring more recruiters and buy PSAT data and sending out mailers. It would be interesting to see those mailers – several parents have told me they’re not very impressed.
International enrollment down, overall freshman enrollment up 6%, out of state enrollment up, first-generation enrollment up:
Ford asks about transfer student numbers. Thompson reports it’s not good.
Jim Brooks then talks about financial aid. UO seems to be engaging in much more price-discrimination, with substantial increases in merit aid: 
Despite this, because of the tuition increases UO’s discount rate has barely budged, from 10 to 11% over the past few years. Student borrowing is down, parent borrowing is up.
In very good news, PathwayOregon enrollment (low-SES Oregon residents) is way up:
Lillis asks how UO compares to AAU in terms of federal aid. Brooks not sure.
2. Student Success Initiative – Semi-Annual Report: Dennis Galvan, Interim Vice Provost and Dean for Undergraduate Studies; Doneka Scott, Associate Vice Provost for Student Success
Doneka Scott is out for health reasons, we hope she’ll back soon.
PathwayOregon’s “wrap-around” advising model has shown great success, plan is to roll this out for all students in some form through the Tykeson project.
Wilcox asks about stagnate first year retention – any evidence as to what is working and what is not? Galvan: no evidence.
3. Online and Hybrid Education – Initiative Update: Carol Gering, Associate Vice Provost for Online and Hybrid Education
She’s new, seems focused on using online to improve grad rates for regular students. No big OSU type online push:
Undergrad enrollment down again
https://ir.uoregon.edu/
Could be worse: https://www.evergreen.edu/institutionalresearch/firsttimefirstyearprofile
oh its just a local minimum
I am sure we will overcompensate and flood the campus in fall of 2019
What we need is a good draft…
To Wit
Become a part of the next class of active, brilliant, determined Ducks. Come ready to innovate, start something, and expand your horizons. We can’t wait to welcome you into the Oregon community. It’s time to become a Duck.
now added to the UO web page
and yes expand all those horizons into those applied thingies …
If the news about SAT’s was good, they would be talking about it, not surprised that they are mum. It fits with widespread mumbling I’ve been hearing about quality of students lately.
That is bad news at that IR website link. From peaks, total enrollment down 8%, resident down 15%, nonres down 10%. They must really be hurting from the sharp drop in nonres again this year. UO dropping far more than the typical public university. They must really be worried in Johnson Hall, maybe this is why I am hearing rumors about big financial trouble here, what with out of control PERS costs, new state mandates. Look for either financial blowout at UO, or state hammering us with cuts to PERS contributions and/or health insurance. Or some of both.
Hate to be so gloomy, but look at the numbers. No wonder things are so tight here.
Or maybe Roger Thompson will pull us out with a big enrollment boom.
Thanks Uncle Bernie, I just posted a little of that data, feel free to add some links.
The lack of applied science programs at UO has hurt this university for a long time.
with no proper recognition that this is the case. No, we remain the bastion of the Liberal Arts college (even at 25K students) where everything applied is everything irrelevant.
Personally, I believe that our almost non-existent rate of evolution deserves failure on the part of the UO – I now realize my own high level of failure for staying at the UO and the lack of opportunities it has over in the area of applied areas at the same time the number of real world problems has escalated.
Can the UO really remain insular forever – well yeah, at least until the next Cascadia Megathrust …
Dog, even I think you are being too gloomy!
Apart from the fact that UO lacks huge pieces of the structure that usually goes with an “applied science” emphasis — engineering, medical school, ag/natural resources come to mind — in contrast, say, to UC Berkeley/UCSF. I don’t see that UO could have done much about that.
But even so, doesn’t UO have a fairly strong applied science emphasis? I’m think of material sciences, parts of physics, chemistry. Humany physiology. Computer science.
These could have been emphasized more, used more for a variety of purposes. I suspect they will be with the Knight “campus.” Whether the present departments are entirely happy with it or not. (I suspect they are in tension over this, though I don’t really know.)
Since I am doing applied science, we must have much different
definitions of what the word “emphasis” means.
The UO has the Knight Campus now, that’s what the hell thing
that the UO can now do much about …
The sidebar truncation “Board of Trustees to perform…” evokes a most pleasant image. Perhaps they can realize this next year. Commedia dell’arte?
As to the declining enrollment, here’s my marketing concept. There’s no real viewpoint diversity in academia in the Pacific Northwest. Even a bit of innovation in that respect would make us a unique draw to new students. We could own this niche.
Specific ideas:
* Announce that we’re going to make a push for at least ten percent of faculty in each department to be intellectual conservatives. Students would know that they’d have an actual opportunity to practice their rhetorical skills against the “enemy”, so that they’d be ready out in the real world.
* A grand, bimonthly roundtable discussion by select faculty on issues of the day. Picture something like “The McLaughlin Group”, but with the two liberals and two conservatives drawn from our faculty, perhaps with esteemed guests. Professor UOM would be a wonderful moderator. Taped for YouTube like TEDx.
* Wisdom Literature certificate program. Participants would gather to read and discuss works from before 100 CE. Most of the important stuff was already in play by then anyway.
What say you?
I find a lot of that appealing; however, in this age of trigger warnings, and the need for safe spaces to not damage the ‘snowflakes’ we are already having trouble recruiting, fundamentally this cannot fly. And a few more thoughts: bringing in 10% of anything would be impossible in the current climate; saying we will target 90% of our faculty as liberal, would not fly; hiring with an eye toward real conservative viewpoint may be OK but hiring {R}epublicans may go against apolitical hiring requirements, and telling the difference is almost impossible these days; and finally stacking them all into one department (law/business), as would be the most likely outcome would not enhance the benefits of diversity and engender the critical thinking, interrogative, debate, and reasoning I would welcome…
So perhaps next time you are on (or creating) a hiring committee (or in a voting booth) instead of looking for the person we most want to have a beer with, we should be looking for someone with qualities that will challenge us, make us excel, and stand up for what is right… Instead of showing up late (if at all), leaving early, only daring to converse or inquire at the most superficial level, ordering another round oblivious in our apathy.
Note that I’m proposing the opposite of stacking. _Every_ department should have its token faction of conservatives. Even the Women’s Studies department would benefit from a Camille Paglia.
I could be all wet, though. Maybe instead we should be trying harder to pull in more snowflakes. Surely there’s a consultancy that can advise us…
What say I?
I say this is the most unworkable and ill-advised proposal in the history of dumb proposals. We are going to turn away more accomplished progressives because we want to fill a quota of “intellectual conservatives”? Why 10%? What is an intellectual conservative? Who decides? Conservative for their field? Conservative in terms of voting? Are we going to check their voting history? What will be required to “prove” intellectual conservative bona fides? Economics? Social policy? Religion?
This idea we need affirmative action and quotas for conservatives surfaces on this site and elsewhere every so often.
It is a dumb idea. Beyond dumb, because there is no good way to do it, that is, a way that is not worse than the alleged problem, and dumb because if intellectual conservatives need that kind of help then we don’t want them on our faculty. One’s scholarship should be the basis for hires, not political views, whatever they are, and if you can’t get your peers to hire you on the basis of your scholarship, then go some place where they don’t care about the worth of your scholarship.
Also, let’s worry about giving a boost to conservatives on campus when radicals and progressives are given boosts to run large corporations or set major policy in this country.
If you don’t like the UO, then go to Hillsdale or one of the other hundreds of conservative and religious institutions across this country.
You’re missing the point. This isn’t charity or affirmative action–it’s an idea for increasing UO enrollment. Conservatives don’t need UO. We need them.
The point is to demonstrate to potential students that UO is not a moribund intellectual monoculture. And frankly, a periodic public intellectual discussion/debate sounds like it would be great fun. When’s the last time we had one or those around here?
As for detecting who is an intellectual conservative, I’m pretty sure we all know one when we see one. Picture William F. Buckley or Allan Bloom if you need an exemplar.