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How many faculty jobs will UO’s Hearts & Minds consultants cost?

4/24/2020 update:

The median UO faculty makes about $70K a year. How many of them will have to lose their jobs to pay for these consultants? I don’t know, let’s find out:

From: Bill Harbaugh <[email protected]>
Subject: PR request for “Public Opinion Research”
Date: April 24, 2020 at 5:14:03 PM PDT
To: Lisa Thornton <[email protected]>
Cc: Kyle Henley <[email protected]>

Dear Ms Thornton –

This is a public records request for a copy of the contract awarded under

RFP for Public Opinion Research RFP Number: PCS# 500100-00251-RFP, and for a copy of the contract for the successful bidder.

The PCS website says that this RFP was closed on Jan 22, and lists it under awarded contracts.

I ask for a fee waiver on the basis of public interest. I’m ccing VP for Strategic Communications Kyle Henley, as he should have this document readily available and be able to provide it without your office’s usual fees and delays.

Thanks,

Bill Harbaugh
[email protected]

Johnson Hall & Trustees to rerun LBJ’s Hearts and Minds campaign 2/18/2020: Some well-paid UO administrators, presumably with the support of our puzzled Board of Trustees, want to hire a consultant to help them win “the battle”, even if it requires a “multi-year integrated public education and advertising initiative that uses emotional appeals, personal stories … to improve perception, mobilize support and a feeling of pride for the university amongst Oregonians …”

They need to pay a consultant ~$200K to tell them why the good citizens of Oregon don’t want to pay for Phil Knight’s football factory? Yes, apparently they do:

What are we paying the people involved in this?

12 Comments

  1. Dogmatic Ratios 02/18/2020

    Governor Brown: we don’t need to feed these elitist, meretricious executives. They’re completely unnecessary, and therefore they wield illegitimate power. Everyone state employee, taxpayer, and student, should resent this. Please remove all executives and all trustees, and turn the university over to the democratic university senate. We’re begging for rational intervention here.

  2. charlie 02/18/2020

    As pointed out in an earlier thread, the number of student loans that aren’t being paid is increasing. Whatever jobs exist in the strong economy referenced in the uni doc do not pay well enough to justify taking on increasing amounts of debt. That’s apparent to growing numbers of potential admits, but JH can’t, or won’t, deal with reality.

    All that underscores just how cynical admin thinking has become. No attempt at making the school affordable and improving academics. Nope, if we come up with a new marketing/PR scheme that appeals to emotions, it’ll get asses in seats. Cue the kittens, puppies, and babies….

    • thedude 04/25/2020

      That’s mostly driven by people dropping out of college, which is mostly driven by either

      1. For profit online universities (Univ of Phoenix)
      2. Regional state universities

      How much of that is their educational offerings suck, or they have a bad selection of students is something we’re testing right now.

  3. uograd 02/19/2020

    Golly gee, another “branding campaign.” I guess the first one worked so well that the UO administration can’t wait to try another. To quote a previous commentator, this looks like more “Duck Shit” to me. By the way, who other than the UO administration considers it the “state flagship?” It’s the third smallest research university in terms of enrollment and according to NSF data OSU secures almost three times as much outside research support and twice as much federal support. Seems like UO is more like a little destroyer scooting around the aircraft carrier home ported in Corvallis.

  4. New Year Cat 02/19/2020

    They would have done better to convene three random staff people that no one ever heard of to tell them why the legislature doesn’t want to invest — that is, if they want to hear some home truths instead of just buying a propaganda machine. The fees to be paid for this are an insult to staff and faculty alike.

    • Dog 02/19/2020

      with a giant Phildo always in our face and thrust at us,
      of course insults to faculty dignity are now a fait a complet for the ever enlightened admins in JH

  5. apt 02/19/2020

    destroyer? more like heading in the direction of one of those vanity force of the future prototypes that don’t ever make it into an actual theater. but it looks cool.

  6. Richard Bohloff 02/19/2020

    Every dollar squeezed from the state is a dollar cheaper to buy a seat on the Board of Trustees. It’s a hard sell for tax money.

  7. Keeping it real 02/19/2020

    And of course decimating LERC endears the UO to Oregon’s working class. You know the folks who pay the taxes and send their kids to in-state colleges.

  8. Anonymous 04/25/2020

    Reputations are earned.

    • Dog 04/25/2020

      I doubt it
      Reputations are, in fact, formed by disinformation and spread maliciously usually based on a single occurrence.

  9. Ragin Duck 04/27/2020

    You cannot make this up. The insulated bubble surrounding Mike Schill is sustained with grossly out of proportion salaries for those forming the circle. They keep their hands tight.

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