That would be Susan Herbst, the new President of the University of Connecticut. From the Chronicle, which also describes similar plans by Iowa and Minnesota:
Our power is always going to be in the faculty,” she says. “They’re the people with the ideas. I feel sometimes in higher education we’re forgetting that.”
Student enrollment at Connecticut has more than doubled since 1995, while the number of faculty has increased by only 16 percent, raising the student-to-faculty ratio from 14-to-1 to 18-to-1. Ms. Herbst wanted to reverse the trend and hired a consulting firm to help identify ways the university could find money for hiring. University officials estimate that the plan to create 300 faculty positions will cost about $50-million.
The consultants, McKinsey & Company, made suggests including revamping information-technologies services and centralizing purchasing, an area in which the consultants said the university could generate more than $20-million in savings. The consultants also recommended ways to increase revenue, such as by raising Connecticut’s relatively low parking fees and increasing ticket prices for athletics events.
Maybe our new president Mike Gottfredson will take a skeptical look at the bloated Johnson Hall budget and the ever increasing central administration tax rate in Brad Shelton’s budget model, and do something similar. Or maybe Provost Jim Bean – appointed without a search – will convince Gottfredson that the money’s better spent on hidden athletic subsidies like the Jock Box, BMWs and administrative sabbaticals, campus police 4×4’s, Rose Bowl junkets, and more “special assistants” like his friend John Moseley. Post on UO’s lack of a serious academic plan to hire faculty to teach all our new students is here. Berdahl’s surprise announcement that we will have 25,000 students this fall rather than the 24,000 planned for, is here.
Its not just the tax rate that goes up, and continues to move money away from the units. Take a look at the reimbursement rates to the units for majors and SCH, they’ve both gone down this year, even with increases in enrollment and tuition. Rationale: none.
REMINDER: Nobody cares what you think. Stop wasting the new President’s time with all of your usual useless crap (suggestions, requests for documents, etc.). You’ve been a pain in the ass for EVERY recent UO Administration, so please stop. If you want to just blog about stuff, I guess that’s ok; just stay away from Johnson Hall and let them do their jobs. Thanks.
Glad to see Jim Bean show up here and post.
Must of hit someone a little close to home. Keep em coming, as long as though in Johnson feel their job is to try to exercise monopsony powers on the rest of the departments.
I can’t help but read that as congratulations on a job well done.
How is it a job well done to file meritless complaints that waste people’s time and prevent them from serving the mission of the University of Oregon?
Dog says
1. Its a Blog
2. What exactly is the mission of the University of Oregon and is it
being served?
THIS is a blog. The blog’s AUTHOR is another story. When he’s not writing this blog, he spends every waking moment harassing UO administrators on a never-ending quest to unearth “unethical behavior” and “corruption” that doesn’t exist. He’s filed countless ethical complaints against all sorts of people associated with the UO, all of which were summarily dismissed for lack of merit and not one of which ever resulted in disciplinary action by a governing body. Anyone who has worked with mentally ill people would immediately recognize that type of behavior as a form of paranoia/borderline personality disorder. I’m not saying this to be malicious; I just think it’s important for the readers of this blog to understand that.
Thanks for this helpful comment. I will discuss your thoughts on my mental state with my proctologist.
Keeping a watch on the admin’s is a noble task. And, yes, UOMatters is another example of a tin hat academic. The big boys would not let him join their admin ranks, so he works the other side of the track. In the past, he would be that guy at the Senate meetings proposing all sorts of resolutions. Now they blog. Oh brave new world. His agenda is clear, you don’t expected a fair and balanced view from him, correct?
I know I would not make a good administrator, and the idea of me “joining the big boy’s ranks” is hilarious on several levels. Big boys? I am just a muckraker.
I do have a lot of admiration for good administrators – of which there are quite a few at UO. It’s a difficult, important job. A large part of what I do with this blog is try to expose examples of corrupt and incompetent administration at UO – of which there is also a large amount. This is essential to improving how UO is run, and is hardly tin hat stuff. Anyone with an open mind who reads the documents I dredge up can see that for themselves.
The “Big Boys” (and Girls) on this campus aren’t administrators. And that’s just the way it should be.
There have been a number of incompetent administrators that have been rightfully canned because of the harassment of this blog. When the bosses of said incompetents grow some and fire them in a timely manner, then it would be time for the “paranoid” author of this blog to retire. I think this blog has really promoted the mission of the UO in providing this harassment. I for one thank UOMatters for its public service to the UO.
I certainly agree — keep it up, UOMatters!
Dog says
this is the kind of general and vague statement that sort of defeats the purpose of this blog. Which administrators have been “rightfully canned”
due to this blog, as opposed to general incompetence that has received some
exposure in this blog. If UOmatters really has the power to fire people, wow,
UOmatter’s head wouldn’t fit through their tiny office door anymore.
I think the exposure to the antics of Charles Martinez contributing to his
being released. But this blog certainly did not have any bearing on the
Don Harris situation. Russ Tomlin retired in the wake of a very poor performance review in May 2011.
I believe the overall purpose of this blog is for intelligent discussion of various campus issues, including administrator performance. Said intelligent discussion is usually lacking within the rant filled comments, but some of it is there.
If people were less nebulous in their comments and more specific (afterall
you are anonymous and I have no real idea who UOmatters actually is, although other people are quite certain even though anyone else could
post as uomatters unless uomatters catches that – so don’t be too sure of anything) that might lead to a more focussed discussion.
In my contributions to this forum I regularly ask questions that don’t get answered but just get ranted. For instance, in this thread I have asked
specifically (see above 28 June) “What exactly is the mission of the UO?”
and no one has told me. Likely because they think its a stupid question because everyone knows the mission of the UO. Well, dog’s are stupid and
need to be explicitly told what it is so that this dog can objectively evaluate if we are meeting that mission and whether or not our various
administrative bloat is servicing that mission. Maybe it is; previous blog posters have said that. I prefer real life data to guide decisions and evaluations. But, maybe all that is just for the dogs ….
As requested –
http://pages.uoregon.edu/uosenate/UOmissionstatement.html
Dog on Mission Statement
ah ha – 11 bullet points define our mission
my favorite one:
the acceptance of the challenge of an evolving social, political, and technological environment by welcoming and guiding change rather than reacting to it
-your kiddin’ right – all we do around here is react ..
my unofficial count is that we are failing on 5 of them (you guys can guess which ones but bullet point 2 is a big one)
6 out of 11 successful – okay let’s call that excellence ….
Dog says
The published mission of the UO is from 1995 – back when we had 16,000 students
and more than 20% of them were grad students.
The UO is not that institution anymore but still carries that institution as its mission statement.
If I knew how to spell, I would spell disconnct
“Anyone with an open mind who reads the documents I dredge up can see that for themselves.”
Not true. I have an open mind, and I read the documents you dredge up, and I think you have done nothing but harass others and waste people’s time. I can’t attest to every situation, but I do know that everything you’ve ever said about Dave Frohnmayer was wrong. The Kilkenny-Fanconi Anemia Foundation stuff? You laughably gave yourself credit for coming up with the IRS documents but ignored the fact that (a) Kilkenny made large contributions before the AD position was open and has continued giving to FA after leaving UO; (b) that he had personal reasons for giving unrelated to UO; and (c) membership on non-profit boards cannot create conflicts of interest under state law. The “backdated” contracts? Lol, this just shows how little you know about contract law. The surplus money paid from the state? You ignored the fact that Frohnmayer reported that to the state FIVE DAYS after finding out about it and then you lied by taking credit for bringing it to the state’s attention. The Return to Work Clause in the sabbatical contract? Technically true, but utterly pointless since Frohnmayer DID return to work at UO.
I happen to know Frohnmayer well, which is why I know everything you say about him is wrong. But I also have heard from others that you do the exact same thing with every person you write about on this blog. You think you rooting out corruption, but since nothing you say is true, all you’re doing is wasting good people’s time and preventing them from doing their jobs. You are truly irresponsible and reprehensible. I will do my best to remind your readers of that fact but it appears you’ve deluded a lot of people.
Thanks for your comments. Do you know if there’s any truth to the rumors that Phil Knight made large contributions to the Fanconi foundation while Frohnmayer was UO President, stopped them after he signed UO up for the Workers Rights Consortium, and then restarted them after Frohnmayer got us out of it?
Why don’t you respond substantively to my points rather than make more inane comments like the one you just made?
It is true UO matters is not Desmond tutu trying to engage in truth and reconciliation, but who in a position of power and responsibility in JH is trying truth and reconciliation. As recently as a year ago, a genuine effort might have us in a very different place and without the need for a union, but no one was willing to step up unfortunately not even RL who saw his biggest problem as outside the campus. is it now too late? Probably, but we will never know unless some very visible executive honestly tries.
Why wait for a saviour? The UO Constitution gives the Senate power that can truly increase the visibility of decisions. Use the Senate. Any Faculty member can bring a motion. Sensible ones will pass. The Administration is obliged to respond or to implement. No subject that impacts the academic mission of the University is out of bounds. Try it. It’s more promising than prayer.