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UO Law sinks to #88 in USNWR rankings, despite ~$10M in subsidies from undergrad tuition

As Brad Shelton would say, the metrics are not good, and they’re falling:

And just 412 students.

But former dean Michael Moffitt, who made the 2014 MOU agreement for “temporary” Law School subsidies with UO VPFA Jamie Moffitt, his spouse, and then lost his job a few years later after an unfortunate series of events that started with him bragging to a NY Times reporter, is still getting $290K a year:

Not bad – his replacement gets just $102K more, and she’s actually doing the job of dean:

What is all this costing UO’s undergrads? Back of the envelope, about $10M a year in higher tuition, or alternatively 1/7 of UO’s entire annual operating subsidy from the state.

There is no sign UO President and Professor of Law Michael Schill has any plans to fix this. And why would he, given the sweet retirement gig he negotiated with our Board of Trustees in 2019, which will pay him $450K plus help and bennies, for teaching 2 law classes a year?

7 Comments

  1. honest Uncle Bernie 09/29/2020

    How does UO law compare in US News to the other law schools in Oregon, Lewis and Clark and Willamette?

  2. Anonymous 09/29/2020

    Correction, Schill would not have to teach 2 law classes to get his $450K. The contract says the classes could be anywhere. That would not be all that novel. Law faculty get paid law-faculty salaries even when they are teaching for other units. If we ever shutter the law school, look for the faculty with options to leave, and the rest to become very expensive humanities adjuncts.

  3. thedude 09/29/2020

    So is there a solution or a proposal to end the subsidies? Will there ever be?

    FYI, does the union care? Because paying for salaries for a unit out of the bargaining unit has to affect our ability to negotiate raises for ourselves.

  4. Prosser 09/29/2020

    I would be interested if the Law School has its own explanation of why it ranks so badly.

    Compare it with the University of Utah. Its total student enrollment is smaller. Indeed, the population of the state of Utah is smaller, plus being the most conservative in the country.

    Yet somehow its law school is ranked in the mid-40s while ours is ranked in the high 80s.

    A common perception of the U of O Law School is that it has no standards in who tenures and promotes, and anyone of achievement leaves. How does Utah keep people and the U of O doesn’t? How does Utah have a bigger faculty with a smaller student body? Has anyone asked these questions?

    • This Is The Way 09/29/2020

      Because the “U” is a better school and the state actually funds it.

  5. Townie 09/29/2020

    Here’s an idea: Move the entire program to downtown Portland.

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