From the RG’s Jordyn Brown, here.
NOTE: Thumbs up/down on comments has been disabled due to misuse by PR Flack supporters. Sorry!
- New Pres Karl Scholz “handles... (4)
- honest Uncle Gangsta { Seriously, the EW article is all about secrecy, the obsessions about diversity, pseudo-psychiatric evaluation (implicit bias?). Not a word about... }
- honest Uncle Gangsta { Effin' A! }
- Powerball { "Scholz’s contract says he’ll make $725,000 in his first year." IIRC, Schill made $660,000 in his first year starting in... }
- Anonymouse { Better than "the way you'd expect a lawyer to handle it". If you follow the link you'll see it's mostly... }
- Smug Interim Provost tries to... (7)
- honest Uncle Gangsta { Yeah, things are going great. Ask those forced to use shared services, Tykeson advising, or search for classrooms. And DEI... }
- Slowly Boiled IT Duck { If you haven't looked at the newer campus climate survey documents, you should. The answer to FAQ #6 ("What about... }
- uomatters { I try not to read emails from Woodruff-Borden anymore, but a colleague sent me this one and I posted it... }
- TRPer { You've done it Harbaugh, you've made me nostalgic for Moseley. Now I must go spit out some vomit. }
- thedude { Admins about low faculty pay. Let them eat DEI training and group belonging therapy. }
- uomatters { I believe you, but a reputation for giving the university's money away to faculty is not going to go over... }
- thedude { You know what help my sense of belonging and department retention. Raises that more than keep up with inflation. }
- Small minded sports columnist mocks... (3)
- CSN { That's a good point -- at my undergraduate institution no alcohol was sold at the football games and yet, somehow,... }
- uomatters { Well, not serving alcohol would be a start - but then that helps pay the coaches salaries. }
- CSN { I'm not sure what coaches and ADs are supposed to do about this situation. This feels like a thing where... }
- UO Administration loses their "strategic... (9)
- Slowly Boiled IT Duck { Trying to recall the specifics, but likely one incident--perhaps comment rather than joke--that would raise DEI eyebrows a bit (the... }
- honest Uncle Gangsta { Boiled Duck -- have they really been cracking such jokes? Somehow, I doubt it. And I hope not. I'd rather... }
- uomatters { Not heartening. }
- Simplius Simplicissimus { I fed ChatGPT the Interim President's letter and asked for a funny comment. Here it is: Richie Hunter V2 (a.k.a.... }
- Slowly Boiled IT Duck { Thanks for flagging that, honest UG. It's a shameful accolade, but I have some slight hope that this is a... }
- honest Uncle Gangsta { For what it's worth, UO has been named one of the 10 worst campuses in the country for academic freedom... }
- uomatters { No, no, please name names! }
- Johnson Hall { Seeing a useless VP jump ship before the new President takes over is a good sign. I'm not naming names,... }
- UO Board appoints competent outsider... (23)
- Lame Duck { Wait, I thought Phil Knight was UO President? Is he stepping down? }
- Thedude { The evil one gave us our biggest raises. }
- moss defender { a competent person in charge of a dysfunctional sinking ship is just a slightly slower trip to the bottom of... }
- uomatters { Not to say I'd feel the same way if it was, say, Larry Summers. }
- uomatters { I was going to criticize this comment for not mentioning other dimensions of what's important in a Pres, but then... }
- Old fart (she/her) { Excuse me while I hold a muted applause since this is the 5th white dude President UO had since I... }
- Cheyney Ryan { I do speak for myself, that's why I use my real name in these posts. Old white men seem do... }
- uomatters { I don't think we'd have had the Knight Campus without Patrick's willingness to work with Uncle Phil. He took a... }
- Senate to Vote this Wed... (1)
- Fishwrapper { I mean, that's the whole point, the raison d'etre behind this whole enterprise, right? What more appropriate way to celebrate... }
- Despite SVB, former UO Board... (4)
- moss defender { bigger mystery who has the civil war soldier head from campus cemetery....pretty sure that was in a Simpsons episode...the replacement... }
- { You left out the lawsuits from when he was on the Medco board. }
- uomatters { Here's hoping any connection is merely geographic. }
- Townie { UO’s endowment is now managed by a Silicon Valley firm (Jasper Ridge). }
- CAS Dean Chris Poulsen asks... (6)
- Hart { So if you are a history/english double major (not a super unusual configuration), you're supposed to sit through a long... }
- honest Uncle Bernie { Such a telling and inauspicious way to hold commencement, starting with the delay for the track stuff. There's just so... }
- Unhappy Classified Camper { And, as a classified member of one of these ridiculous CAS Shared Services/ASU, I was told I was to not... }
- oldtimer { All good comments. My general reaction is ‘what a brilliantly student-centered change from departmental major ceremonies to a three ring... }
- { A little off topic, but if you bold a sentence should you also add: (emp added). This double emphasis would... }
- Older »
- New Pres Karl Scholz “handles... (4)
Last Tweets
- RT @Tobin_Tweets: Bonds designed to insure Credit Suisse against disaster could outlive the bank https://t.co/LrjAkbXwdM via @markets, Mar 27
- New Pres Karl Scholz “handles university administration the way you’d expect an economist to handle it.” https://t.co/t8MItI1L0l, Mar 24
- Smug Interim Provost tries to distract her underpaid faculty colleagues by “fostering their sense of belonging” https://t.co/ATGypH0Ekk, Mar 23
- Small minded sports columnist mocks State Rep Janelle Bynum for her courageous stand against drunken sports fans https://t.co/eEWTI5UfgJ, Mar 22
- UO Law School runs afoul of ABA’s diversity quota https://t.co/yxqdfaft3A, Mar 21
Tags
AAUP-AFT Union? Academic Freedom administrative bloat Athletics athletics subsidy Beangrams Coronavirus Dana Altman Dave Frohnmayer: UO President Diversity Faculty pay Faculty Union (United Academics of UO) free speech Jamie Moffitt Jim Bean: UO Provost Jim O'Fallon jock box Lariviere Firing Lorraine Davis March 8-9 rape allegations Melinda Grier Michael Gottfredson NCAA NCAA violations new partnership plan off topic OUS Board and Chancellor Pernsteiner PERS Public Records Public Safety Randy Geller General Counsel Research money Richard Lariviere: UO President Rob Mullens Scott Coltrane Senate Sharon Rudnick Tim Gleason Track and Field Championships Uncategorized UO Foundation UO Presidential Archives UO restructuring plan UO Trustees-
Recent Posts
- New Pres Karl Scholz “handles university administration the way you’d expect an economist to handle it.” 03/24/2023
- Smug Interim Provost tries to distract her underpaid faculty colleagues by “fostering their sense of belonging” 03/22/2023
- Small minded sports columnist mocks State Rep Janelle Bynum for her courageous stand against drunken sports fans 03/22/2023
- UO Law School runs afoul of ABA’s diversity quota 03/21/2023
- Northwestern Journalism students write post-mortem for Pres Michael Schill’s years at UO 03/20/2023
- Provost and Trustees kick back in glee as faculty fight it out over who gets the smallest merit pay cut. 03/17/2023
- UO Administration loses their “strategic thought partner”, will replace her with ChatGPT 03/16/2023
- Senate to Vote this Wed on fixing graduation 03/14/2023
- UO Board appoints competent outsider as new President – John Karl Scholz from UW-Madison 03/13/2023
- Despite SVB, former UO Board Chair Chuck Lillis still holds record for largest US bank failure 03/12/2023
- CAS Dean Chris Poulsen asks you not to forward his commencement email to your students 03/08/2023
- UO Board meets to name new President 03/08/2023
- Admin now using Concur to keep tabs on your teaching 12/05/2022
- Public Records Lawsuit Against University Foundation goes to Supreme Court 12/04/2022
- Provost Woodruff-Borden et al. deliver ultimatum to exploitative Elsevier 11/18/2022
- President Phillips to deliver State of UO address from a secure off-campus location 11/17/2022
- Pres Phillips expects that yet more committee busy-work will improve campus culture? 11/16/2022
- VP for enrollment emails faculty with great UO enrollment numbers 11/15/2022
- Another big-time college football program collapses, to the indifference of students, alumni, and locals. 11/11/2022
- Pres Phillips plans to hold graduation at football stadium, ban “rogue” department ceremonies 11/09/2022
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Thanks for the tip, now I need to intercept more of that cheese before the greedy “labor” gets any.
Who will represent faculty interests? ?
Some economist. We’re screwed.
UO has long been at or near the bottom among the Oregon campuses in state funding per student. This, for the “flagship.” Some flagship! Pathetic.
There may be other states like this, but I’ll bet not many. Maybe Colorado.
Here’s hoping that the UO admin can do something about this grossly inequitable situation.
If our local legislators have ever tried to do anything about this, it has escaped my attention.
Many at OSU consider their school the “Flagship” what ever that means.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk%3AOregon_State_University
As stated below. Blame your board. I do not know, perhaps some old timer can shed some light, but I think I heard that the old OUS model of funding following the student was proposed/desired by UO as they were the largest school at the time. They just failed to see the pie on the table or the possibilities of PSU enrollment bloat or that OSU may have a product that the customer would want, beyond 4H. Add in that UO turned its back on in-state students since as a side effect of that same bad model, out of state students could at times be worth more than Oregonians. Too bad that international students got spooked but hey they may be back after 2020^.
My recollections are that Myles brand negotiated retention of tuition funds by campuses, not because UO was larger, but because we had many more high paying non residents. The old OUS Board then began distributing state support for resident students based on national costs of different majors. oSU won big in two ways. First by getting more per resident because of their engineering programs and second by getting paid that higher amount for each additional resident student, even if the student majors in the cheapest major on their campus. Finally, there is the cascades campus thinning of the soup. Just my recollections
I thought having an independent Board was supposed to unleash untapped funding sources so that the University wouldn’t have to be dependent on State funding, which OSU seems to compete for with more success. The Board was also empowered to create STEM programs that would be popular to in-state students.
What happened?
Too busy finding more ways to pay more administrators more.
Oh, and Duck gear.
The Hat’s notion of independence was premised on UO’s issuance of approximately $1 billion in bonds. Instead of having public oversight, the school was going to answer to Wall Street bond palaces. The idea that debt would create the capacity for the flagship to do what it wanted was an hallucination, and nothing more than a PR marketing scheme…
That is a ridiculous account of the UO/Phil Knight endowment plan, the issuing of bonds, how the finances would work.
It could be both “ridiculous” and essentially true.
The Senate Budget Committee Report of November 8, 2010, contained a simplified explanation of the proposed funding mechanism:
“The financial strategy proposed is for the State to “capitalize its investment in the University of Oregon.” Under the proposal, the level of the current annual State general fund support for the University, approximately $62 million, would be locked in for the next 30 years. (This is a nominal dollar amount, and would presumably decline in real (inflation-adjusted) value, and as a percentage of the State budget, over that 30 years.) The State would issue bonds for an amount that could be supported by an annual payment of $62 million, approximately $800 million. Before the State committed any bond funding, the University would raise a matching amount from donors, and this combined $1.6 billion would constitute a greatly expanded endowment for the University. The income from this endowment would support University operations, in lieu of the annual support from the State general fund. The State would make payments on the bonds for 30 years, and would not be responsible for any other support of the University of Oregon.”
An excellent summary of “the plan” that the Hat and Phil Knight had proposed. If the money had been invested in a stock index fund at about the time mentioned, then after subtracting out the returns needed to substitute for the state subsidy, the endowment would be worth around $2 billion today. (This would be in addition to the current UO endowment).
One more question. I once heard it was typical and chronic for state departments and municipalities to not pay into PERS in the past… even for the variable accounts. Anyone know if this is true (link).
Did UO pay enough (anything) into PERS when it hired coaches that earned outside monies deemed pay (same for OHSU and physicians)?
https://expo.oregonlive.com/news/g66l-2019/06/48899ada085375/top-20-oregon-pers-recipients-as-of-jan-1-2019.html
Everyone pays – but UO pulled a scam with Mike Bellotti by not paying PERS on the money they passed-through to him from Nike, even though it counted for calculating his final salary and his $500K a year PERS benefits. Ted Sickinger at the Oregonian wrote some great stories about how they pulled this off – including a well-time quickie divorce and remarriage.
a much bigger problem than these was the financial malpractice of PERS and the legislature in handling the variable accounts. The earnings on variable accounts far exceeded the earnings on Pers investment accounts. pERS and the legislature should have recognized this problem and limited payouts to variable accounts to the earnings on a separate portfolio matching the portfolio used for earnings on variable returns. failure to do so meant obligations on the higher returning variable account assets far exceeded far exceeded the earnings on the person assets. This is a decades old overhang on the system, but it was caused by the system not the recipients.
You’ve said that before, I’ve looked at the news source from Sickinger that supposedly says that. It says no such thing. It was bullshit then what you were saying, and it’s bullshit now. The idea that UO could skirt the PERS contributions laws is just ridiculous.
I’ve talked with Sickinger about it. UO did not pay PERS contributions for Bellotti’s Nike money, but that money was used to calculate his final salary and payout.
If you and Ted really have evidence that either UO or PERS defrauded the state in this way, you should publish it. Until then, I don’t believe a word of it.
No one “defrauded” anyone in the legal sense. They simply interpreted the rules in place at the time to their advantage, and PERS chose not to raise questions.
there is a generic problem and I am part of that problem, much
to my own benefit.
For many years (e.g. about 20) I was able to generate 3 months of summer salary support from NASA and NSF (note: my experience has been that the concept of summer support based on research grants is still regarded as “fake news” by some sector of UO faculty and some sector of union leadership – thus the concept of the 12 month salary is quite real for some of us faculty)
Note of that none of that money came from the State of Oregon, all of it, however, is included in my PERS benefit. This is wrong in principle, but I ain’t given the money back
Assuming your grant pay went through UO, your grant paid for your salary and UO’s overhead, which included payments into PERS. However, if you ran the grant through an off campus institute like ORI or OSLC or the NBER, no PERS payments were made and of course that salary is not part of your UO salary from which your retirement payments are calculated.
yes I understand that
just pointing out that it is a huge advantage with respect to
PERS tier one to get summer salary. Also, in genreal, I never
could make real sense of my PERS earning statement, it
was always 10-15 K *higher* than I can reconcile. This results in a FAS which, while quite good for me, is a number I really can’t reproduce.
I have also had a quite inconsistent history of “overload” pay
and whether not it got included.
Just have your attorney call the PERS hotline and demand “the full Bellotti”.
What’s “wrong in principle” about paying OPE with grant funds?
to me, its unfair to other state employees who don’t have opportunities like this – its also unfair to the 9-month traditional faculty since this pay, again, is coming from the Feds – yes I understand its okay, you deserve it and all of that – simply stating the multiple lenses exist.
ODA — Anyone who has ever paid an employee off a grant knows that UO has been very diligent about charging for PERS contributions.