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Senate to meet Wed at 3PM

Zoom at https://uoregon.zoom.us/j/96310002361

February 2, 2022 Senate Meeting Agenda

Academic Year2021-2022DateFebruary 2, 2022

Call to Order

  • Land Acknowledgment; Renee Irvin
  • “Practicing Trauma-informed Pedagogy in a Time of Political Polarization”; Anita Chari (3:00 – 4:00 P.M.)
  • Intro Remarks; Spike Gildea
  • ASUO updates; Maxwell Ely

Approval of the Minutes

New Business

Beginning at 4:25 P.M.

Open Discussion

  • Campus Climate Survey info; Yvette Alex-Assensoh (~4:10 P.M. )

Adjournment

  • 5:00 P.M. 

37 Comments

  1. Emeritus prof from another school 02/04/2022

    i dont do Zoom,
    so tell me if the crazy resolution to do away with gender based language is to be replaced with one that allows an individual faculty to choose the gender neutral version of emeritus prof? I call the original version crazy because the notion that all gender based language hurts women is over the top, even for progressive UO.

    • just different 02/04/2022

      Hey look, a comment from 1970. No wonder you don’t do Zoom.

      • uomatters Post author | 02/04/2022

        Like

    • Old Gray Horse 02/04/2022

      Will UO use the neuter emeritum? May we choose to identify as emeritus /-a /-um? I ask this seriously as one who was looking forward hopefully to someday having the title.

      • uomatters Post author | 02/04/2022

        I think the plan is that UO will call you Emerit. However you will still be allowed to use emeritus /-a /-um if you prefer. Your UOM screen name, however, cannot be changed. Don’t let it happen again.

      • Recent Emeritwhatever 02/04/2022

        Oh, crap—I just ordered new business cards.

    • XDH 02/05/2022

      THIS is why the UO senate is not taken seriously by a vast majority of UO faculty. Two resolutions to degenderfy retirement designations — SERIOUSLY? I consider myself quite liberal on most issues, but this is the PC police gone dreadfully, stupidly amuck.

      • honest Uncle Bernie 02/06/2022

        You say you consider yourself quite liberal on most issues. Think how this shit looks to mainstream people outside the academy. Fortunately for us, most of them don’t pay attention. Except that now, a lot of them have done started to wake up to how woke we have become. Maybe not in Oregon so much. But it may even happen here.

        • Emeritus prof from another school 02/06/2022

          I spent 40 yrs in the Academy, at research Univs of similar quality to UO [ at its best]. And i researched sex and gender in non-humans for all that time, and gender roles in humans for many years…with some world class anthropologists.
          And I Think the first motion makes UO faculty look silly.
          I realize I will be attacked for not being an ally to this noble act of combating sex bias. Freyd’s editorial boldly declares that the only allowable positon is ….hers, and anyone who disagrees is a bad person . Particularly any man. My declaring her position silly pales as an insult next to her views about anyone who does not buy into her claims about the harm caused by the mere existence of emeritus/a titles.

        • Dog 02/06/2022

          what may happen here? What in the hell are you even talking about; you mean a WOKE up to the prima donna and esoteric personnel that work at Universities?

      • just different 02/06/2022

        What’s with all the hate about this? It’s exactly within the Senate’s purview, it’s extremely easy to do, and in ten years it will seem weird and a little benighted that it wasn’t done sooner. It’s no different than using “police officer” and “flight attendant” as job titles. Are you really so clueless that you need someone to explain that to you too?
        __
        If you’ve never had to think about why many people are uncomfortable with gendered titles, that’s pretty much the definition of privilege. So is resentment and contempt about the Senate taking fifteen whole minutes to talk about it.

        • Heraclitus 02/06/2022

          Like.
          I mean, apart from the butchering of Latin (oh well) this is the simple stuff. Let’s move on.

          • Fishwrapper 02/07/2022

            Like that old Greek said, “A fool is excited by every word.”

            • The dog of Heraclitus 02/07/2022

              Abundance of knowledge does not teach men to be wise.

              • Heraclitus 02/07/2022

                hold my beer

                • The dog of Heraclitus 02/08/2022

                  dogs are generally not known to hold beer, rather, we just slurp it up. Now, if I could bark slurp it up in Latin, then I would actually be an academic …

        • Campus Worker 2 02/07/2022

          The complete disregard for Latin grammar and understanding is what is offensive about this conversation. Emeritus as an adjective is grammatically masculine because professor as a noun is masculine.

          We can have a discussion about changing words, but one must do so, knowing it comes against the academics of how the language works and is understood. We would be bettered served not creating misinformation about language.

            • Peter Keyes 02/12/2022

              Thanks for clarifying that. I always thought Mens Agitat Molem translated as Mountains out of Molehills.

          • just different 02/07/2022

            Srsly? Cite a single example from anywhere in the English-speaking world over the past hundred years where “Professor Emeritus” was pluralized as “Professores Emeriti” (with the e), the way Latin grammar demands.
            _
            Methinks your offense springs from some other source.

            • Heraclitus 02/07/2022

              Let’s add another level here. Who, outside of academia, knows wtf an emerit/us/a is anyway? What if we came up with a job title that is comprehensible to the taxpayers who fund the majority of these positions?

              • Not taxpayers 02/08/2022

                Taxpayers do not fund the majority of these positions. UO’s state funding is a small percentage of the budget. They are mostly funded by tuition dollars. So maybe those that pay us tuition care – but I doubt it.

                • Heraclitus 02/08/2022

                  How many of those tuition dollars come from taxpayers as grants, scholarships, loans that will not be repaid, etc.? The federal govt sure seems to think it has a right to supervise our teaching standards because of the amount of money it funnels to us.
                  Also, people who pay tuition for themselves or their relatives deserve to see unobfuscated job titles for the postions they directly fund. Pretty sure most undergrads don’t know what an emerit/us/a is either.

              • Heraclitus 02/08/2022

                OK, I take it back, it’s the right term. From Lewis and Short: “that has become unfit for service, worn out: equi, Ov. F. 4, 688; cf.: apes fessae et jam emeritae, Plin. 11, 11, 11, § 27; so, palmes, id. 17, 23, 35, § 206: aratrum, Ov. F. 1, 665: latus (with invalidum), id. Am. 3, 11, 14: acus, Juv. 6, 498: rogus, i. e. burned out, extinguished, Prop. 4 (5), 11, 72.”

                • Dog 02/09/2022

                  But at the time I was hired by the UO I definitely was a) unfit for service, b) totally worn out, and c) definitely extinguished. So I should have been hired with classification as either extinguished professor or as professor of emeritrivia, certainly not as associate professor …

                • honest Uncle Bernie 02/09/2022

                  Dog, be careful or they just might appoint you the first official Extinguished Professor Demeritus at UO!

                • Dog 02/09/2022

                  I am already officially recognized as only Dead Wood

            • Campus Worker 2 02/08/2022

              When you are done with your red herring maybe you can focus on the point and discussion at hand. Zero individuals are advocating for the grammatically correct pluralization of a professor title.

              The issue is and will remain to be how we try to change language to supersede commonly used and understood terms.

              @heraclitus makes a valid point.

              @just different please refrain from mischaracterizing the argument

              @uo matters, interesting conversation documentation. Thanks for sharing

              • just different 02/08/2022

                *sigh* English hasn’t had nouns with a grammatical gender (not the same thing as a “natural” gender) for 800 years. If you’re complaining about noun-adjective gender agreement, then you are implying that “professor” is in fact a Latin word, which means that it should be pluralized as one. In which case it should also be feminized as one, but no one seems to be advocating for “Profestrix Emerita.”
                _
                The title of Professor Emeritus is a faux-medieval holdover, like Gothic arches built in 1850 and polyester academic robes. There’s nothing intrinsically “correct” about it. And you can’t really be suggesting that the meaning of Professor Emerit is unclear. Because that would be a red herring.

                • Campus Worker 2 02/09/2022

                  Emeritus is already an inclusive title to any type of professor.

    • honest Uncle Bernie 02/06/2022

      Yes, if we really feel so guilty about being here, and want to do something about it, we should advocate for vacating the University. In fact, the non-natives could vacate the state entirely. Or at least turn over their property to the natives. Or maybe just half their property, as a gesture of goodwill? But of course, mere virtue signaling feels so good, and doesn’t cost anything.

  2. OAnon 02/07/2022

    QQ, is the Senate website not in use anymore? I used to find it a really helpful resource, but it looks like it hasn’t been updated since late 2020…

  3. honest Uncle Bernardus? 02/07/2022

    diff — you mean “i” — I’ve used it countless times, and seen it used as often — now, help us with concerti — grossi? or grosso? or concertos? or grossos? we savages!

  4. Old Gray Equine 02/08/2022

    Since we live in inflationary times, why not the comparative emeritior, which has the advantage of having the same endings for masculine and feminine?

  5. Leporillo 02/12/2022

    *sigh*
    If no one else will takes up the mantle I’ll happily advocate for “Profestrix Emerita.” That’s a title worth sticking around for!

  6. Canard 02/12/2022

    While this proposed terminology might make sense to some faculty, it will only cause more confusion and ridicule in the outside world. For some, “emerit” will evoke the memory of a long-forgotten Cajun cooking show; others may think it refers to some new online rewards program, similar to frequent flyer miles in the Metaverse. It is a ghastly word. It could only have been coined by a committee of social scientists with tin ears.

    Rather than moving forward with this unnecessary butchery of language, might I suggest that there is a perfectly reasonable and comprehensible alternative: .…Professor (retired). This has many advantages:
    Non-academic people would understand it immediately.
    If you look in the CBA, you’ll notice that the tangible benefits listed there accrue to all retired faculty, not just the select.
    Not only is it non-gendered, but it simply refers to one’s current state of employment, without any implied judgement as to the value of one’s contribution to the academy. (A parallel can be drawn to our now-preferred usage of “unhoused” instead of “homeless.”)

    I am aware that this last one may be a bug, not a feature, for many of us looking to put that last notch in our CVs (or tombstones). For each of us, the piling up of credentials, distinctions and awards began decades ago, and continued through the long slog of our careers in the honor culture of academia. But maybe after retirement we can hope to achieve some higher degree of enlightenment, separating our identities from our professional personas, willing to acknowledge that in a few years much of what we professed will be refuted, ignored, or even disdained.

    I have a good friend who retired at the end of an illustrious career that included being dean of two eminent schools, and president of national organizations. When people ask him now about his career, he replies, “I’m a gardener.”

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