In bargaining today. That’s a nominal bird flip, in real dollars economists refer to it as a fuck you.
Zoom into the sessions here. Union is telling the admin team to go back to their imagineers and thought leaders and think again. “Oregon Rising” for JH administrators, Oregon Falling for the faculty.
Scholz’s team is refusing to schedule winter bargaining sessions because they don’t like it when Keaton bullies them in public with numbers and PowerPoints showing that the percentage of the budget going to faculty pay is falling. Wants to do the bargaining behind closed doors to keep us ignorant.
Admin proposal here: https://www.uauoregon.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Article-26-UO-12.05.2024.pdf
The data show that a declining fraction of the budget are going to “Instruction” which constitutes the academic departments, including faculty salaries. I wonder where the missing money is going to? I wonder if some of it consists of “teaching” activities like tutoring activities in the library? (One of only one case). It seems to me that teaching activities have been shifting to these activities. Could one imagine that there’s a loss of confidence in the teaching in the departments? I don’t know, but the questions above are worth answering.
My guess is it was probably a chance for the library to expand its budget and hire so more mid managers, and create more promotion opportunities as people use library services less and less.
I like encore, but its not fundamentally different than having just more TAs in my class, they’re just way cheaper than GEs.
The TAEC services are held at Knight Library but not run/staffed/funded by the Libraries
Do you know under which administrative unit they are operated and funded? In not in Instruction, do you know where the fit?
For years, UO admins have been advertising classes (typically in data this and that) without flagging that they are not taught by faculty. Instead, they are taught by outside consulting groups who have paid the UO for access to students and their emails. Does anyone know what has happened to those contracts over the last few years as the UO admins have been implicitly pointing to Jamie Moffitt’s long-lived incompetence?
Are UO admins paying market wages to these outside consultant-teachers? More to the point, are payments to consultant-teachers increasing faster than payments to faculty-teachers? (The union should know this, right?)
There is always room for improvement, and admin is certainly no exception. Many (not all, but many) of our deans could use an attitude adjustment in their temperament towards their own employees. Expanded and considerably more involved shared governance around budget issues at the college level is a topic that the University Senate should also undertake. E.g., via empowered senate budget subcommittees at each college, where deans outline the problems facing them and get faculty and staff guidance on a quarterly basis *before* the deans make final budget decisions. (As opposed to the current status quo where decisions often feel like they’re announced by dictatorial fiat from on high without any stakeholder input beforehand. )
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However, it’s also clear that there are real financial constraints the university is working with, and resources are limited. Our legislature is largely to blame for this, and there really needs to be an increase in both raw funding in the PUSF along with additional PERS reform. What is the union doing to push for PERS reform with the legislature? Or, if PERS reform isn’t palatable, what are the politically viable legislative changes people are suggesting so that the university has the ability to meet the (mostly reasonable) demands of the faculty without raising tuition or resorting to cutting positions?
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I agree with the union on the need for salary increases. I am frustrated by the bad attitude and bargaining posturing of admin, although I am sympathetic towards their budget realities. But I am absolutely furious at our governor, legislature and PERS board, and I wish both the union and admin would take a minute to pause bargaining and work out a joint plan to lobby and picket the legislature. Kotek’s proposed budget for higher ed is a disgrace, and it’s not getting nearly the amount of of negative coverage in the press that it should.
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Speaking of the press, where the hell is the Oregonian? Their silence on labor unrest at public universities has been deafening in light of the constant sports articles about the ducks and beavers. Their comparative quiet on higher ed issues is certainly eroding my faith in their press. It wouldn’t kill James Crepea for him to write at least one story about the academic and administrative side of the house (finances, research, student achievement, etc.) for every 5 he writes about duck athletics.
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I’m calling shenanigans on this crap. The legislature has consistently offered meager resources to the state’s public universities for DECADES. The university’s strategy in adapting to things since Measure 5 has been two pronged: 1.) Complain that the state doesn’t offer enough funding, and B.) Hope Uncle Phil (and now Aunt Connie) wants to build another shiny edifice.
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In all this time, the university has been negligent in fostering a shared commitment to prosperity; rather, the admins have consistently captured all the prosperity they can for themselves at the expense of other groups on campus. The university has failed to be innovative in cost-management solutions – except each time they hire another OA to provide a cost-management solution. The university, enabled by megadonors, has managed to live outside its means, all the while complaining they don’t have the funding from the state. How it has prioritized gifts, largely favoring athletics at the expense of academics is a CHOICE be admins that is not a fault of state funding levels.
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The legislature has, is, and will fund the universities at less-than-optimal levels. Some institutions have learned to deal with this and manage to nevertheless thrive and graow academically and in the research arena. Others just whine about Salem. Move on – there’s nothing to see here.
.” Increases are minimums. All increases specified in this Section are minimum
increases. The University may choose to provide additional increases to base salary upon
promotion and/or reviews. ”
This paragraph has been deleted by UO.! Which is quite odd when you think about it.
That means that the only way to make better wages for TT faculty is 1] Fast promotion, which does not work WHEN you are already a full prof. 2] being given an additional endowed prof position, if available 3] getting an outside job offer, and making a credible threat to leave UO or 4] becoming a Sr admin and negotiating a PERMANENT salary increase, to be carried forth when you return to the faculty ranks. .. ie, becoming a GOLDEN PARACHUTE PROFESSOR.
So if one is elected to the NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCE, one must get an outside job offer to get UO to financially reward that accomplishment , beyond a certain minimum.