I’ve always said that the UO administration could end this muckraking website any time they wanted to, simply by being honest and transparent. A quick glance at the public records log will convince you that our Johnson Hall leadership is not there yet.
However, if current trends continue, UO M will have no readers by sometime in Dec 2018. On the other hand the administration’s official Around the O blog already has ~0 readers from the Eugene Metro Area, which of course includes UO:
I’m no econometrician, but I think I see some negative correlation too. Do people seek out UO M and avoid Around the O when there’s a scandal involving info the administration is trying to hide?
Fortunately Around the O does much better if you expand to the national data.
I believe the Structural break in scandals (UOmatters viewership) coincides with Schills arrival. Looks like he is putting you out of business.
That would make me so happy!
You should be so lucky! but I don’t think you will be.
Your should submit a request to get Around the O google analytics data. It shouldn’t be hard for them to provide that and you can compare views.
Good idea – I just emailed UO VP for communications Kyle Henley, asking him for it. He’s a good guy, I’m sure he’ll send it along.
Around the O is the university equivalent of a teenage braggart who fools no one. It is a puerile attempt at vanity publishing. Why UOM wastes its time on such drivel is beyond understanding unless UOM feels threatened. Perhaps UOM might be better off writing about more important campus subjects such as:
1) Why faculty and staff morale is at an all-time low?;
2) Why the former AAA is in tatters and its Dean is looking for another job;
3) Why the Music Dean is micromanaging its faculty to death and playing favorites including allowing at least one faculty member to post lewd videos under the guise of “research”;
4) Why the CAS dean continues to hide behind a huge coterie of do nothing middle level administrators and mediocre deanlets (the worse by far is the science deanlet);
5) Why the new provost insulted current faculty at the recent faculty leaders retreat by his statement that all new hires must be better than the current faculty;
6) Why the President’s statement that athletics is not in the purview of the faculty is accepted without challenge by the Senate President;
7) Why shared governance no longer exists at UO;
8) Why the University President continues to make blunder after blunder;
9) Why the University is imploding; and last but not least,
10) Why UOM steadfastly refuses to criticize the University President or Provost?
Perhaps UOM has become too chummy with the powers that be?
Too much Scotch for Sun Tzu on this one –
here is a point by point response
1) How the hell do you know we are at an all time low? Perhaps your personal morale has achieved this, but you can’t reflect that to a global statement? Besides, like Trump idiocy, there may be no such thing as all time low for UO faculty morale.
2) AAA has never been managed well and has always been too fragmented. In general AAA has not been well respected within UO leadership (one of the reasons that Bronet eventually left).
3) Yes; agreed
4) Double YES
5) Too soon to judge the new provost but indeed, how do you know what “better” means. Maybe give them a “better” salary …
6) Too much internal politics here
7) Shared governance is one of the things that revisionist history always creates.
8) Blunders require examples of what a blunder is
9) I have looked for signs of implosion – I see no physical evidence. Perhaps it is an invisible implosion and you don’t know your in one, until, too late, you have been totally sucked in.
10) Give UOM a break – it published your agenda …
My Dear Dog:
You may be man’s best friend and loyal to boot however your optics on a few responses are a bit off:
1) University morale IS at an all-time low. Ask anyone. Better yet, ask anyone if they know of a person who thinks UO is a good place to work. Find me one person who has been here at least 5 yrs and who thinks the University is better than it was 5 years ago and I’ll show you an overpaid administrator. The campus atmosphere is as stressful, unhealthy and depressing as the fire-fueled smoke cloud that enveloped Eugene earlier this month. The smoke lasted ~10 days. The negativity on campus isn’t going away anytime soon (and I say that with great sadness).
2) Your comment begs the question of why has AAA been historically disrespected by the admin? Maybe because AAA does not bring in the research bucks? Maybe because their focus is on teaching, which no administrator values. Frances got tired of trying to convince Johnson Hall of the value of AAA. Same story for Music and Dance. And the Humanities. Check out the recent horrible treatment of Romance Languages. No respect unless you bring in research grants. Talk about skewed optics…
5) The Provost did not use “better” in the sense of higher salaries. He meant it in the sense of higher quality than current faculty. There was an audible groan by those in attendance in response to the provost’s comment. Ask any of the 50+ dept heads in the room to confirm.
6) Internal politics be damned. Athletics is a massive black hole of wasted funds which could and should be used to improve our declining academic standing. Administrators are too worried on keeping their high salary, high perks jobs to fight the big donor on this issue. And faculty have no one else to blame but themselves for allowing this to happen.
7) Shared governance has been a hallmark of western universities for over 800+ yrs. UO faculty had a strong voice in decision-making up to the mid 1990s. Then came Frohnmayer and his pet harpy Moseley. Together they worked diligently to reduce faculty involvement in University decisions. Thus, began the corporatization of UO. Think it was an accident that those two added the monikers of CEO and Senior Vice President to their business cards? And that they put those corporate titles first, in front of their academic ones? Shared governance didn’t have a chance after that. The unionization of the faculty is a direct consequence of the lack of faculty voice in campus affairs.
9) UO’s implosion has occurred from the inside. The administration over the past two decades has made decision after decision, not based on improving academics but on what will allow them to maintain their current positions and find another job. All external academic measures of UO academic quality have declined over the past 25 years. That is why each new president has been most concerned about losing AAU status on his watch. You think hiring a Nobel Prize winner is not primarily aimed at helping us maintain our AAU membership? Or the emphasis on national faculty awards? How about the Knight Campus which is already sucking time, energy and funds from the main campus before the first brick has been laid. The implosion is clearly visible in our national standing. And the university administration’s 25 yr love affair with athletics is correlated with our academic decline.
10) UOM has done a fantastic service to the University since its inception. It has shined bright lights in many areas the admin would like to keep dark and away from prying eyes. The past two years however has seen a shift in UOM. The lack of criticism of our current president is correlated with UOM’s faculty leadership positions. Say it ain’t so dear Dog but to these eyes, it looks like UOM has been co-opted by Schill.
We may have differing opinions but I still love ya Dog! Woof!!
Dogs generally chew on optics.
But a brief doggie response
1) Yes morale is low but I don’t detect it to be at an all time low or really any different than it was 5 years ago. However, it is worse than it was 10 years ago.
2) I think AAA did try to do too many things, historically, so that confused the myopic nature of JH so they didn’t really think that AAA was doing much of value,
5) Wasn’t there so I didn’t hear the audible groan.
6) Your asking for integrity on the part of something/one that firmly makes our Academic Mission number one. I agree that’s needed but I doubt this dog will live to see it.
7) I don;t know – I guess I think that a) shared governance is an oxymoron (Moseley was just a regular moron) and b) what is their to actually govern at a University?
9) I am going to have to see the crater left behind to mark the implosion.
10) All hail UOM all of the time ..
All hail, indeed.
I have said it before and I will say it again, no one in their right mind would come to work at the U of O right now if they really understood the TOXIC culture that exists from all sides. All sides contribute. If you want to just blame the administration then you fail to grasp the severity of your issues.
I would not advise anyone who valued their career to take a job there. If you are an administrator you won’t be given the benefit of the doubt, if you are faculty and staff you will be resented. Good luck in that toxic soup you all are mixing together.
And yet President Schill has been able to hire very able administrators from outside, has found plenty of good people to promote from inside, and we continue to be able to hire very good faculty, and often keep them.
Sure, we’ve still got a sleazy athletic department and the other usual problems of a modern university, but when I’m reduced to reposting second-hand stories about a classical music festival, it should be clear Johnson Hall is no longer an asylum for dysfunctional administrators.
I’m not asking for any credit for this turn-around, but I’m not accepting any blame for your imaginary continued toxic soup either.
@Sun Tzu, @Max Powers — Wow. Condolences on your misery. A lot of us are happy at UO. It’s not perfect, but it has a lot to offer and it’s better run than a lot of universities that I’ve visited. There’s a diversity of experiences at UO, and blanket statements about morale or toxic environments are silly. If you want to complain about specific environments in your necks of the woods, go for it.