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Scholz throws in a one-time $1700 goat, ignores fall in % of GF going to faculty

The data:
The yada-yada from today’s admin email:
Colleagues,
As we enter the cooling-off period in our negotiations with United Academics, we are writing to share the details of our offer, and the context that has informed our thinking throughout this process.
We value our faculty.
They are the heart of our university and vital to our ability to fulfill our mission as a public university to teach, conduct research, and develop new and applied knowledge to benefit society. We also recognize the desire and the need for a fair contract that invests in our faculty and sustains the long-term viability of our university community.
An offer in line with peers and colleagues.
At the same time, we must also be responsible stewards of the university’s financial resources. Our offer will put significant financial pressure on our already strained budget and is informed by benchmarking from across higher education. Some salient points:
    • Current total compensation for UO faculty averages 98.3% of AAU public peers, despite the fact that almost all those peers are larger, better resourced and more highly ranked.
    • Our recent and proposed annual salary increases are in line with, or slightly above, AAU public peers. The average AAU annual faculty salary increase this year was 3.38%. The UO is offering 4.0%. By contrast, UA’s requested salary increase – 8.5% in the first year and 8% each of the next two years – is more than double this amount.
    • Over the last ten years, faculty salaries have increased faster than the rate of net tuition (2.9% average annual growth). It is important to note that net tuition is our primary source of funding for salaries; increases beyond the rate of tuition are not sustainable in the long term.
    • Faculty and administrators have received the same total salary increases over the last ten years. While starting salaries for individual hires of both faculty and administrators are often influenced by market rates, annual percent salary increases have been the same for both groups over the last several years.
    • Annual proposed increases in our offer to United Academics match those recently provided to Officers of Administration (OAs) in a similar multi-year package. Fairness across the different employee groups at the UO is important: faculty and OAs represent a majority of our community and both are essential.
    • The university is currently projecting a $2.3 million deficit for this year in the Education & General fund budget, due to out-of-state enrollment coming in below target, as well as rising compensation costs.
Our offer to United Academics:
    • A one-time payment of $1,700 (prorated) for all active bargaining unit faculty members upon ratification.*
    • A 4% increase to base salary for all active bargaining unit TTF, Career, Pro Tem, Visiting, and Retired faculty upon ratification.*
    • A 3% merit increase pool for TTF and Career faculty effective January 1, 2026.
    • A 3% merit increase pool for TTF and Career faculty effective January 1, 2027.
    • A 13.5% increase to salary floors effective July 1, 2025, establishing a $50k Career instructor floor.
    • An increase to the first post-tenure/continuous employment review for meeting expectations from 4% to 8%.
    • A new 8% floor rank differential for Career faculty to offset compression from increased salary floors.
    • Additional increases for Limited Duration faculty (excluding Postdoctoral Scholars) of 2% in both 2026 and 2027.
The need for fiscal stewardship
Like universities across the nation, the University of Oregon faces significant economic headwinds. These include declining high-school aged population, competition from other colleges and universities, cost pressures from the federal government and state policy, and under-investment in higher education at the state level.
We, along with our colleagues at the AAU, APLU, and Big Ten Academic Alliance, continue to assess the potential impact of a number of federal actions and executive orders. This includes a potential cap on indirect funding from grants, reimbursements that cover a portion of universities’ facilities and administrative costs. If this or similar actions move forward, universities across the country stand to lose billions in funding. Many of our AAU peers, as well as universities across the country, have already issued financial austerity measures in anticipation of the potential loss of revenue.
In a period of uncertainty, we need to steward our resources wisely, balancing the needs of faculty, staff, students, and our many constituents, and continuing to ensure the financial stability of our university.
A fair and responsible offer.
The strength and stability of the University’s future depends on the decisions we make in the next few years. We support the right of our faculty to organize and to negotiate for increases as part of the next contract. However, those increases can only be made within the university’s financial means and cannot come at the expense of other employee groups at the UO, or at the expense of the students we are here to serve. We believe our offer is both fair and responsible and we urge United Academics to accept this offer and create a strong and stable future for our students, faculty, and university community.
Sincerely,
Christopher P. Long
Provost and Senior Vice President 
Mark Schmelz
Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer
* If ratification takes place on or before the 15th of a month, the increase will be applied back to the 1st of the ratification month, if ratification takes place after the 15th of a month, the increase will be applied the 1st of the month following ratification.

15 Comments

  1. Anonymous 02/26/2025

    No money for faculty, but Moffitt has $83K for more communications crap.

    The Executive Assistant to the Vice President (VP) for Communications and Chief Marketing Officer provides high-level administrative and executive support to the Vice President, including management of executive time, handling key information, working with the Vice President to proactively plan and prepare for key meetings, presentations and reports. The Executive Assistant acts as a key facilitator and support, helping ensure the VPs time and focus are effectively managed to support the strategic goals of the division. The Executive Assistant acts as a key liaison between the VP, university leadership, and external stakeholders, facilitating smooth communication, coordinating logistics, and maintaining the confidentiality of sensitive matters.

    https://careers.uoregon.edu/en-us/job/535002/executive-assistant-to-the-vice-president-for-communications-and-chief-marketing-officer

    • Lurky 03/07/2025

      Yea dude, a VP needs an EA of some form. You pay a lot of money for a VP, you want them working their own calendar and meeting schedule?

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      • Fishwrapper 03/07/2025

        Be not so condescending as to suggest this is merely a highly-paid Outlook Calendar Specialist. “EA” is really a compressed title; when expanded, it spells Gate Keeper, and when executed correctly can keep prying minds and busybodies from getting close to the folks kept beyond the gate.

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  2. honest Uncle Bernie 02/26/2025

    I’ve said it before, I’ll say it now that they have made an offer. How do they expect to avoid talking about the graphic above? The significant drop in the % of the general budget going to faculty salaries, since 2019. It is so obvious and glaring. Can’t they at least go back to 2015 (or some other AAU benchmark)? Can’t they offer some explanation, or even just a lame excuse? I can actually think of several explanations for the data, all of the important data, if I had access to it, the accurate numbers. But I’m not seeing the Admin working this into a bargaining position, if indeed they have the means to do that, i.e. make a reasoned argument.

    People have told me that Scholz obviously must have a low opinion of UO faculty. In the absence of a decent explanation, it’s hard not to agree.

    I’m afraid that they will continue on their bargaining path, there will be a strike, and long-lasting, perhaps fatal damage will be done at UO, with ample blame to go around.

    I hope I am all wrong.

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  3. Union Supporter 02/26/2025

    Some important context for the “goat:” In the administration’s previous offer (https://www.uauoregon.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Article-26-UO-12.05.2024.pdf), the raises took effect January 1, 2025. In this email, Provost Long writes “If ratification takes place on or before the 15th of a month, the increase will be applied back to the 1st of the ratification month, if ratification takes place after the 15th of a month, the increase will be applied the 1st of the month following ratification.”

    In other words, this goat is in lieu of backpay.

    • uomatters Post author | 02/26/2025

      Sounds like something Elon would do.

      • Not a Tesla driver 02/26/2025

        Say what you will about Musk, at least he’s not hiring more administrators, giving them raises, and padding out their offices with executive assistants.

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  4. Heaven_decafs 02/27/2025

    My solidarity with my union is not for sale, and if it was, it wouldn’t cost $1,700. Fuck these guys.

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    • Lurky 03/07/2025

      Of course not, it’s market price. Whatever the majority of the union think it’s worth is what you’ll accept.

  5. John Doe 02/27/2025

    The email from the administration says that
    “Current total compensation for UO faculty averages 98.3% of AAU public peers, despite…”
    Is this a true statement? Is there some kind of “catch” to this claim? Thanks.

    • honest Uncle Bernie 02/27/2025

      I think they could make a case, maybe valid, maybe not, if they wanted to, that when you include retirement benefits + higher than average health insurance benefits + consideration of a supposedly somewhat low cost of living in Eugene (relative to the AAU), that the 84% or whatever salary actually comes out to 98.3.

      I would have to see these numbers seriously worked up and presented.

      Even if everything I have mentioned here were all true — I don’t know — there is still the damning graphic at the top of the page here. The faculty is clearly experiencing a diminished share. Why is their portion of the budget sinking in recent years? If the faculty are well-compensated (salary + benefits), are they being hired in reduced numbers? Why is the academic budget going down? I haven’t heard a good explanation.

      If they have such a good case, why are they doing such a shitty job of explaining it?

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  6. thedude 02/27/2025

    So are they saying we were overpaid relative to AAU peers 10 years ago since right now we’re at 98 percent?

    And by their math, are the admins overpaid then? And what about the departments that are way way under AAU peers even using their metrics?

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  7. Raghu Parthasarathy 03/06/2025

    U. Oregon faculty union: Strike Authorization Vote opens March 11.
    The U. Oregon Board of Trustees sent an email today announcing in the subject line a March 7th Ad Hoc Board Meeting. Surely about the faculty bargaining, I thought. But no! “Subjects of the meeting will include employment contracts for intercollegiate football coaches.”
    It’s great that our leadership has its priorities straight.
    I learned later today that the football Head Coach will be getting a salary increase, to $11 million per year. Yes, I know the athletic budget is separate. I’m actually more annoyed that this is what the BoT feels is worthy of discussion.

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    • uomatters Post author | 03/07/2025

      The Duck budget isn’t really separate. Millions flow from academics to athletics – part of VP Moffitt’s job is to hide how much. Here’s an analogy for those who don’t like economics:

      It’s as if there are two connected circuits – the General Fund and the Athletic Fund. The Athletic fund has much higher voltage, so normally electrons would flow from athletics to academics where they could generate more effective work.

      However the circuits are connected by a vacuum tube triode. The dial to regulate the control grid is on the President’s desk in Johnson Hall. Turning the control voltage down would make it easier for electrons to flow from athletics to academics. However our President keeps dialing the restrictive voltage up instead. Things like the “Faculty Athletic Rep” and Lorraine Davis’s salary – yes, she’s still working as the AD’s fixer – get paid at least in part from the Academic Budget. The UO President’s office spends plenty of time managing the athletic side, even when there’s no crisis – and Athletics contributes nothing. Frohnmayer made the academic side pay for the Jaqua Center operations and part of the land for the Bball arena. Schill gave it another crank – paying for the electricity upgrades for Hayward Field and The Phildo. Even their overhead payments are lower than what academic departments pay – thanks again to VP Moffitt’s creative accounting work.

      OK, this vacuum tube analogy is not turning out as simple as I thought it would be. But the point is the Pres Scholz is lying when he claims the Ducks pay for themselves, and from what I can tell he’s made no effort to fix the problems.

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      • Curious 03/07/2025

        Can you speak more to the overhead payments and why you believe the academic departments [in total? Just CAS?] are paying more overhead?

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