The link is https://strengtheninguo.org. I’ll save you the trouble, it’s the usual Jamie Moffitt bullshit about why UO needs to cut real faculty pay. To paraphrase Claude Rains, “A person who tells lies merely hides the truth, but one who tells half-lies has forgotten where they put it.”
So why isn’t it posted on the uoregon.edu domain? Maybe this is a test site from the presumably well-paid consultants who put it together? In any case they *really* don’t want you to know who’s responsible. From https://www.godaddy.com/whois/results.aspx?itc=dlp_domain_whois&domain=strengtheninguo.org:
Check the domain registration nationality. The University of Oregon had to contract with snowback Canadians from Ontario for this. Does no one in the USA even know how to write a union-bashing website anymore? As a Loyal American PATRIOT I Thank God that President Trump’s tariffs will force Scholz to buy local and Make the Pinkertons Great Again!
Duh, this website and its rhetoric isn’t meant for the faculty. Its meant for the hearts and minds that actually matter i.e. OR newspaper journalists (i.e. techbro AI bots) and students and their parents. From the FAQ:
How will these negotiations impact students?
Our students are at the center of our mission. We are fiercely dedicated to providing them with a world-class education. Making responsible financial decisions today is paramount to protecting the UO experience for generations to come. We are committed to ensuring accessibility for all people who dream of pursuing higher education — including low-income and first-generation students.
If the union wants to move the needle, and not see a backlash agains faculty (who are already viewed as elite and overpaid), it better get on its own messaging asap, cause trust me, this b.s. will make an impact where it matters. Its why they’ve shelled out for it.
So, Pres Scholz had his PR flacks hire Canadians to put up a website that bots will scrape to feed the AI that underpaid journalists will use to churn out stories about greedy professors? I miss the days when our administrators would just give me a bottle of scotch to say something nice about them on this blog.
Is there any reference or link to this website on the UO “official” website”? It sure looks like an official UO website, with the footer (though different “ankle”) as the “official” website, including links to five UO social media accounts and the trademarked “O”.
Has this website been announced in *any way* to the UO community?
Is the UO funding the work to maintain this website? Who is the staff maintaining this website? On what servers? If all UO $ supported, what could be a logical reason, or reasons, for UO for funding a non-uoregon.edu website? Who will be asked these questions an by whom?
UO Workplace News 12/17/24 article “Financial stewardship key to the UO’s long-term success
Balancing investments, preserving access and stewarding resources guide decision-making” includes a link to the Strengthening UO [sic] website.
Well that didn’t take too long… https://www.opb.org/article/2024/12/28/university-of-oregon-budget-dilemma/
“UO is staring down a projected $2.3 million budget shortfall this school year. The gap is largely a result of increased personnel costs and falling short of out-of-state student enrollment goals.”
Complete with a photo of Jamie Moffitt, smiling like the proverbial cat who bought a website.
You sure called that one right!
It may seem strange that any university president should dare use student tuition money to pay Communications VP Carol Reese to hire consultants to persuade reporters to write stories justifying underpaying their faculty; but let us judge not, lest we be judged.
We have set a path forward in our new strategic plan, Oregon Rising, designed to support student outcomes, enhance the well-being of our community, and elevate our scholarship. —– https://oregonrising.uoregon.edu/
This is referenced in the strengtheninguo.org page. Two parts stand out to me:
“If everything is a priority, nothing is a priority. Where appropriate, we will curtail work that does not align with the goals outlined in this plan.”
“It is tempting to simply set rankings, or other third-party measures, as the aim of a strategic plan. While our aspiration is certainly to rise in academic standing, such rankings are merely lagging indicators of the reality we commit to create at the University of Oregon over the next decade and beyond.”
It should be called operation or mission curtailment. I want a patch.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_patch