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Professor Parthasarathy posts Provost platform: 45% and he’ll bike in

From Raghu’s always informative Eighteenth Elephant blog. Read it all, this is just a snippet:

Our Provost at the University of Oregon has stepped down, and there’s a call for nominations for a new one. The search will be internal, i.e. the next provost will be a UO faculty member.

Bill Harbaugh — economics professor, president of the University Senate, and muckracking journalist — tossed his hat into the ring as “The Half-Price Provost,” noting among other things that he’ll do the job for just $250,000, about half the present provost’s salary, and that since he owns a “paid-off ’87 GMC Caballero” (a hideous car/truck chimera), he doesn’t need the $12,000/year car stipend that comes with the job. There are real points as well; Bill is serious about his candidacy. I think he’d be good for UO. His odds of success are pretty close to zero, though.

It occurred to me that I could be provost, and that my candidacy offers some advantages compared to Bill’s:

    • I can bid lower, offering to do the Provost’s job for 45% of the current salary. (More on this below, when the serious part starts.)
    • Though I can’t pose in front of the administration building with a pseudo- El Camino, I can similarly decline the absurd car stipend that we offer extremely well paid people. Moreover, my transportation is even more Oregonian:

RP_Bike_Snow

Raghu’s attack on my vehicle of choice is a new low in political campaigns, although my wife agrees with him about the “hideous”, and our daughters are now calling it “Dad’s Chimera”. Apparently not everyone appreciates chromed fake wire-wheel hubcaps.

As for the salary, Raghu goes on to argue, with data, that the new provost should be paid about $370,000:

Here, I will make the serious argument that the next provost should have a salary of at most $370k.

The provost position presently pays about $489,000 per year. I was curious about the history of this gigantic salary, so I dug through reports [1] at the UO Institutional Research site. From 2008 to the present, the salary has increased enormously:

UO_Provost_Salary_History.png

The rest of his argument is here. While I agree with it, I’m still willing to do the job for $250,000.

20 Comments

  1. Sanjay Srivastava 05/09/2019

    I fully support this candidacy and I will gladly fill in when Raghu is on vacation for the mere cost of my own annual bike allowance – as long as the Senate President has no say over what kind of bike I get (Bill would make me ride one of those fixed-gear monstrosities).

      • Anon 05/13/2019

        The ~$370K is an interesting number. A closer look at the salary data says that $367K is the salary the current provost will be paid when he becomes just a professor on july 1. Not a bad gig if one can get it!

    • uomatters Post author | 05/09/2019

      It had not occurred to me that the provost’s $33-a-day car allowance could be used for bicycle costs. However, silk sew-ups for the Frejus are $89 a pop, so I’ll stick with the Chimera and SAIL.

  2. Gina Psaki 05/09/2019

    In addition to having all the chops, he has like Harbaugh a fantastic sense of humor and is as capable as he is comfortable with rebutting conventional unwisdom (as well as downright bullshit).

  3. Conflict of Interest 05/10/2019

    How can you succeed by accepting a much smaller salary when the primary distinguishing feature of UO provosts has been their huge salaries? It will be amusing and sad to watch the wagons circle in JH as they defend the strategy of drawing from a small pool of glad handing “admin class” who are exactly the folks who showered their heartfelt recommendations on Kimberly Espy – MULTIPLE times despite a trail of non-AAU wreckage behind her. This is how UO can join the wreckage.

    • Dog 05/10/2019

      Wreckage can often be quite successful

  4. Darby 05/10/2019

    A chart of the President, Provost, Vice Pres’s, Vice Provosts, and deans primary, secondary, overload, and total salaries would be interesting to see.

    • Hart 05/10/2019

      I imagine you could make one and share with the class. The information is public, and I think a link to it is in the footnotes of Raghu’s post; the data is arranged by person in a PDF so you’d need to look up each person individually or know someone who knows how to grab the data and rearrange it, but still.

      • Darby 05/10/2019

        Yup. And we’re working on adding coaches etc. spreadsheet forthcoming.

        • Deplorable Duck 05/11/2019

          While you’re at it, it’d be nice to have someone OCR/etc. the UO salary reports for all employees, into CSV format or whatever. Bet there’s lots of interesting nuggets hiding in there…

          • Hart 05/12/2019

            You mean, like the evidence of how horribly the whole “put the OAs in salary bands” project was done and continues to be done? Because I expect if you were to arrange and compare OAs by band and job title, you would find some notable discrepancies and interesting stories. (Note: even though now HR is working to create job families for OAs, they are explicitly not going to correct or even look at any of those discrepancies until they think that project is complete which seems to be in 5 years or more from now.)

            • Deplorable Duck 05/12/2019

              I just think it’d be interesting to have the entire data set in an manner that would be easy to process.

              As an example, I can search the PDFs and see that Prof UOM makes way more than I do, but in itself that’s not necessarily very meaningful. The entire payroll would provide a lot more perspective.

  5. Eternal Skeptic 05/10/2019

    The wreckage at UO ends (or does it begin?) at Hatfield-Dowlin. This glowing piece on ESPN about the UO football program notes that the team’s strength coach got a salary bump from a measly 200K last year to 310K this year and next. Must be nice to get an increase that’s more than the entire salary of nearly all TTF on this campus, and as the layoffs and cuts are about to commence, too. But hey, at least the precious bloodsport… errrr…. entertainment on this campus is safe. Phew!

    http://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/26710729/how-oregon-importing-sec-pac-12

  6. NTTF 05/10/2019

    Hell, I’ll do it for my NTTF salary, which is (ahem) somewhat less than the 45% mark, just to keep my job and therefore my family’s health insurance for another few years. I walk to work because I can’t afford a UO parking permit.

  7. Darby 05/10/2019

    Your chart and the forthcoming spreadsheet should be posted far and wide, on every faculty door, every NTTF, every GE, every staff.

    • Inquiring minds 05/11/2019

      Hint — open up the unclassified IDR report an ssearch of “OA14” and also for “executive admins” to get the upper level admins salary info. https://ir.uoregon.edu/salary?page=3

      • Dog 05/11/2019

        for some context

        Bob Guldberg, director of KC, makes 550K

        remember this is the same KC that got their budget
        for next year slashed by a whole 4K

        • Anonymous 05/12/2019

          here’s a list
          from Provost down to 190K for all with 100% appointments.

          Basketball Coach 2.5 M
          Football Coach 2.5M
          KC Director 550K
          Provost 489K
          Dean Law Shool 373K
          Assist Football Coach 360K
          VP Research 353K
          General Counsel 352K
          Head Coach Track and Field 350K
          VP Finance 345K
          Assist Football Coach 335K
          VP University Advancement 321K
          Head Softball Coach 325K
          Enrollment Mangement Head 313K
          Assit Mens Basketball Coach 300K
          Assist Football Coach (2) 300K
          Assoc. Athletic Director 289K
          Prof. COE 282K
          Asst. Mens BB Coach 280K
          Porf. Business 278K
          Assistant Football Coach 275K
          Prof. Economis 273K
          Dean COD 260K
          Deputy AD 260K
          VP student life 256K
          Prof. Business 253K
          Vice Provost Intl Affairs 253K
          Prof Law School 253K
          Assoc. Prof Buisiness 253K
          Prof Buisiness 251K
          CAS Dean 249K
          Assoc. Prof Buisiness 246K
          DEAN SOJC 245K
          Assoc. Prof Buisiness (2) 244K
          University Commuctions 243K
          Prof. Business 239 K
          Exec Vice Provost 238K
          Prof. Business 233K
          CIO 233K
          Prof. Business 232K
          University Advancement 232K
          Psychiatrist Univeristy Health Center 230K
          Assoc. Prof Buisiness 230K
          Assoc. Prof Buisiness 227K
          Mens Golf Coach 227K
          Prof Buisiness 226K
          Prof. Business 225K
          Assit Football Coach 225K
          Psychiatrist Univeristy Health Center (2) 222K
          Prof. Biology 222K
          Assoc Dean Strategic Inititiaves 222K
          Assist Prof Business (2) 220K
          Prof. Economics 220K
          Assoc VP for Research 219K
          Safety and Risk Services Officer 218K
          Prof. Business 216K
          Faculty Athletics Rep 216K
          Assoc. Prof Buisiness 215K
          Deputy Gen Counsel 215K
          Prof. COE 214
          Prof. Business 213K
          Assit. Prof Business 212K
          Dir CAS Development 211K
          Assit. Prof Business 210K
          CAS Division Dean 209K
          Assoc VP for research 209K
          Prof COE 206K
          Assoc. Prof Buisiness 205K
          VP Financial Aid 204K
          Vice Provost Portland 204K
          Prof. Business 203K
          Instructor Business 202K
          CPFM Mgmt 201K
          Prof. SOMD 200K
          Dean of Grad School 200K
          Assoc Womens BB Coach 200K
          ON line Education Dean 200K
          Deputy Atheltic Director 200K
          Strength and Conditioning Coash 200K
          Advisor to President 199K
          Knight Chair Business 198K
          Associate VP for Innovation 197K
          Assoc. Prof Business 197K
          Head Librarian 197K
          Prof. Geography 196K
          Assoc Provost Academic Affiars 195K
          BOT Secretary 195K
          Medical Director University Health Center 194K
          Professor Chemisty (2) 194K
          University Advancement 192K
          Prof. SOMD 192K
          Prof. Economis 192K
          Prof. Physics 191K
          VP for Equity & Inclusion 190K
          Assoc Prof. Business 190K

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