UO Matters Discussion

Waiting for Godot to comment…

So lets add it up. The football coach gets paid 1 million plus for the failure of half his football program. Not bad, anyone else would get fired if they had a failure rate like that.

Are you kidding about this parking stuff? The NCAA lets UO dole out perks like this? And campus planning lets this happen? Did this go through the planning committee? Did Chris Ramey sign off on it?

These guys are athletes but they can’t walk a few blocks to their cars? We may as well give up the pretence of being a university and call ourselves what we are — a sports training institution.

How can the board “rent out” or “lease” state property? Or have authority to let a non state employee decide how state property will be used? Can they do that???

I tell you our administration must stay up at night thinking of ways to screw the “commoners” and make their lives that much more fu–k-d. It won’t be long (could be now) that the administration will be the only people allowed to park near or on campus. And get this…we still have to buy a sticker to park blocks from the university…that’s screwed.

I say make them walk..green the campus for clean air, open spaces and more classrooms. Just think classrooms where Dyke and Bean park…looks great to me. No wait! fill all the parking lots with classrooms and 2 million dollar offices for our faculty! Let’s have some equity around here…for everyone. Equity…I walk, they walk…that’s fair.

I say that a motion be brought up in the faculty senate that vehicles are no longer allowed on campus property including parking lots or city streets therein except for vehicles used by service employees such as security, police, plumbers, painters…etc. GO GREEN!!!

Let the administration park where they force everyone else to park. The administration justify s their parking spaces because they have to go to meetings…well here is an idea for them….take the bus to your car and go to the meeting…or walk half way across town get in your car and go to the meeting. So very simple.

I’m betting that before Nike dies…the university will be renamed NIKE U. Why not? They bow to his every whimper now what would be the difference down the road with a simple name change?

Funny that the athletes have to have parking within so many feet of a building. Are they not the most healthy people around? It’s not like a walk would hurt any of them.

Has anyone looked into the Universities compliance with disabled parking? Just a passing thought.

If there is a coffee shop in the athlete only learning center can a non-athlete buy something there ?

Top of the post should be 1-1-10, not 09…

On December 30, Anonymous wrote “I say that a motion be brought up in the faculty senate that vehicles are no longer allowed on campus property including parking lots or city streets therein except for vehicles used by service employees such as security, police, plumbers, painters…etc. GO GREEN!!!”

Since Anonymous is anonymous, I cannot tell whether s/he has a right to bring a motion to the Senate her/himself. S/he has if s/he is an Officer of Instruction, an Officer of Administration, anyone of eighteen members of the Student Senate; twenty-five members of the ASUO Executive; and five members of the ASUO Constitution Court or a UO Emeritus.

If Anonymous is a member of the population described above, s/he should bring such a motion, not just blog about it. If she is not a member, s/he should prepare a motion and ask her/his Senator to introduce it.

Dog Says

Today, the official opening of the
Jacqua Center, conveys with it so many metaphors for the Charlie Foxtrot operation of the UO it can’t go undocumented.

1. The Building is actually not yet done – there is yellow tape across the front door.

2. The adjacent parking lot remains closed. The Law School Professor Lot, now closed to Law School professors, who apparently rank now below Student Athletes in the UO
hierarchy, has 22 cars in at (at 10 pm) out of 62 spaces – what a surprise.

3. If you look at the John Jaqua artsy fartsy sign from an angle of 45 degrees or larger, its not actually readable or in focus.

4. The power went out to campus this morning, just about the same time that the Jacqua center would come fully on line electrically –
see I guess student Athletes really do have all the power …

3.

Is parking for student-athletes’ use of the new learning center an “extra benefit” and, thus, barred by NCAA rules?

From local publications, we learn:
If Measures 66 and 67 do not pass, it is likely that UO students will face tuition increases and cuts in services. (Local FOCUS, 12-9-09)
“Nike, the biggest athletic-shoe maker in the world and Oregon’s only Fortune 500 company, has given $5,000 to a PAC that is working against the measures, although Nike is not among the businesses listed by the campaign as an official opponent of the tax increases. Nike Chairman Phil Knight has personally contributed $50,000 to the effort to defeat the two measures, while Nike spokeswoman Erin Dobson has issued a statement criticizing the measure that lawmakers put on the ballot.” (Register-Guard, 1/4/10 – A bigger bill for big business)
So, Phil K. boosts the Jocks with one hand while slapping the rest of the students (and their cars) with the other.

Dog says concerning the loss of parking.

I don’t believe the loss in parking
(which in principle, I agree, sucks)
as quantitatively large as you suggest.

the law school lot (34F) had 62 spaces in it (so far, since I walk through that lot every day in my drudge walk to drudge campus) its
been either empty or has a few cars with yellow tickets on them (3 cheers for another revenue stream)

the total number of spots lost in the Oregon Hall parking lot is likely close to 150.

my prediction is that lot 34F will be restored back to what it was after a few weeks of observations reveal its under utilization in its new form.

“Barbara West” is the local realtor? Are you sure? Not Barbara West of the President’s Office? Are you sure you’re not an idiot?

Almost certainly the Barbara West described here:

http://honors.uoregon.edu/faculty/barbara-west

Theoretical Leadership. Interesting that such a person as he has reveled himself to be is allowed to teach such a class. Maybe being just theory it isn’t real and all the personal perks of our administration are just our imagination.

Will this class touch on how to use the institution for your own personal gain? That seems to be what all our administrators know how to do best.

I guess you could say his theory works and is worth teaching. He has himself yet another personal perk… he now has his own building to teach in with its own parking. Great job Dave! Your respect meeter is now at the bottom and going under.

What is the legal standing for people that use the University for their own personal gain?

Dog Makes 2 Observations:

1. Barbara West used to be
Barbara Edwards

2. Lot 34F has been absolutely devoid of any parked cars now for
the last two days.

Totally empty – a symbolic representation of the UO in the view of the dog.

Go ducks …

To ZstarMac,
Peter chaired this week’s Senate Meeting masterfully in every complimentary sense. His generous dedication to University Governance as WebMaster has (or should have been) greatly appreciated.

We’ll see. I don’t see why anyone would have animosity to the current Chief Occupant of Johnson Hall.

Maybe the Prexy is expecting the Faculty to govern, as the Charter mandates. We can hope for a more favorable response to such initiatives than we received under the previous JH occupant.

Yes, that’s a good question. My response was meant to indicate that, for some easily identifiable reasons, it was certainly not an entirely good thing.

New UO president and Bellotti discussing sport culture at Cozmic Pizza on February 12…..are they smoking something ? What a weird event.

The new Oregon Quarterly magazine- there are free copies at the UO Bookstore/Duck junk store- has a interesting article about automated storytelling in the new alumni center design. Once the massive smart screens are installed UO can impress tourists with a Minority Report like techno-utopia. They will save money on tour guides. Cutting edge mind machine interface stuff…….revenge of the nerds.

I seem to remember this too – anonymous. Do you have a good link or quote?

A reminder in today’s RG that UO is paying former athletic director Bill Moos $2 million not to work elsewhere. Now he wants to take a job at UNLV and still collect from us. Don’t know where to begin.

http://www.registerguard.com/csp/cms/sites/web/sports/24285846-41/moos-oregon-agreement-bcs-job.csp

… and it’s ‘All Systems GO’ for low-ball offers from other institutions — finely calibrated to come in JUST above the amounts on this generously published list — to anyone who might consider applying elsewhere at some point.

Not that anyone would confuse UO for a hideout of excessively compensated faculty, but this will make things particularly convenient. Chapeau!

I was at a place that did this. Everyone knew it was the plan, and it was pretty brutal on the senior admin who’d been counting on coasting to retirement. Then the new President came in, brought his new staff and Provost, and it was a big improvement. He was a teambuilder, and I don’t think would have taken the job unless someone else had done the dirty work already.

Thanks for posting the tidbit about Janis Lariviere’s $135,300 job as a “Senior Counselor” in the Development office. I gather that Ms. Lariviere did some good work back in Kansas and/or Texas; maybe she’s continuing that here. Still, this strikes me as nepotism. Certainly the “trailing spouses” of faculty members don’t get this kind of treatment. And do the Larivieres really need all that money? I’m disappointed.

Dog says

If your a faculty member at the UO
drinking in the office is vital sanity maintenance

Okay, so Dog lists specific grievances on the part of all employed dogs at the UO. (note that Salary is not on this list, cause dogs don’t get paid shit anyway …)

1. Unbalanced investments in athletic vs academic infrastructure

2. Increasing the student population without the commensurate increase in instructional resources

3. No one is paying attention to our graduate student enrollment problems and the loss of our status as a Research I University.

4. Lack of sufficient internal money for a summer faculty research program (80K is pitiful)

5. A completely broken general education system, which everyone agrees is completely broken, but no one is willing to fix it because it costs too much. As I barked before, this is Sardine Can University.

6. A completely dysfunctional Instructional/Information Technology environment that now offers no relevant services. We need to start over here.

7. A total adherence to a mostly irrelevant now, departmentally based degree programs. If interdisciplinary training is the career pathway of the future, why are we doing squat here?

8. Chanting sustainability when we are about to bring an 8MW Fossil Fuel generator on line to support the arena project thus *increasing* our carbon footprint associated with electricity generation.

well I wouldn’t expect the Union to consider items 6-8 I would expect some action on 1-5

so, readers of UOmatters, would I get any real action on 1-5 from a Union or just an endless UOsenate type debate …?

OAR 571-004-0005: Family Relationships and Employment, references 571-003-0010 as outlining the greivance procedure.

I cannot find OAR 571-003-0010 anywhere online. Their conspiracy, or my idiocy?

speaking of Jim Bean’s overpaid staff. ever noticed how his executive assistant got a nice raise from summer quarter to fall quarter? or how the director of the office of multicultural academic support’s director salary is significantly higher than the original job posting salary range?

Prexy says “”People know about the U of O, they know about the university of Michigan, North Carolina, Texas, Berkeley because of the athletics program,” he said, “not necessarily because of the quality of their Sanskrit programs.” That may be true for many potential undergraduates, but it is probably not true for the best students and is certainly not true for good faculty. Good faculty and good students seek positions where there are good faculty and good students. When faculty quality is allowed to decline, bigger and better football is more likely to have a detrimental effect on university quality than a beneficial one.

See article in today’s R-G for more info on the discrimination case.

http://www.registerguard.com/csp/cms/sites/web/news/cityregion/24464605-41/rogers-department-jury-damages-professor.csp

Why do you hate UO athletes?

The introduction of a “victory lap” into Commencement is of a piece with the recent “Celebrating Champions” campaign on the UO website (http://www.uochampions.org/), where we learn about “gamebreaking professors” and our “academic depth chart.” The university leadership is now actively blurring the distinctions between athletic gamesmanship and serious academic study, allowing the rhetoric of the former to dominate its very attempts to defend the latter.

The recent jury verdict related to charges of race-ethnic discrimination at the UO simply confirms the patterns of retaliation and hostile employee relations that are documented throughout this blog. My understanding of the situation is that Professor Rogers reported wrong-doing, including illegal discrimination, to University authorities. She then experienced systematic retaliation, ending in the termination of her contract. This termination was exacted in a highly irregular fashion and contrary to the vote of both the midterm review committee (including both departmental and external members) and her department. Until reporting the illegal discrimination all reviews of her work had been exemplary. The retaliation was clearly spearheaded by those who were the focus of the reports of discriminatory behavior.

This pattern of discrimination and, especially, retaliation has been repeated numerous times throughout the University. When challenged, the University, using the Attorney General’s office, spends inordinate amounts of money fighting charges of discrimination. (For instance, the state has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars fighting this particular case and that is before payment of damages and legal costs to the plaintiff.) The administration also engages in extraordinary measures to harass those who dare to challenge them, with numerous and varied attempts to ruin reputations and financial standing of their challengers and their families and friends. Only a very few, brave people are ever able to withstand the onslaught and the deep – in fact virtually bottomless – pockets of the University and the state’s legal apparatus.

The UO’s approach to employees appears to involve fierce attacks on anyone who dares to question an administrative decision or to point out possible wrongdoing. One, now retired, administrator has been quoted as saying, “We’ll always fight as hard as we can against employees. Only a few people will have the energy to continue all the way against us. Even if we eventually lose a few cases, most people will be too scared to take it all the way, even if they have the law on their side. Thus we probably save money by playing hard ball.”

I’m not a lawyer, but I have been told that smart organizations approach employment relations in a manner exactly opposite to this. Smart organizations use employment lawyers to help them figure out how to conform to laws and regulations and obey employment related laws – not to harass and intimidate employees or to justify decisions and practices that are blatantly illegal. It is time that the UO entered the 21st century and began to do the same. They should reinstate Professor Rogers to her position and develop fair, non-discriminatory practices and procedures.

Notice to “Faculty” Regarding the Former Commencement

1. Henceforth, the fan support and athletic appreciation event previously known as “Commencement” will be known as “Northwest Dodge Dealers Graduation™.” “Students” or “faculty” who refer to it by any other name will face potential civil liability for copyright infringement or trademark dilution, as well as University discipline.
2. “Northwest Dodge Dealers Graduation™” will be held in the John E. Jaqua Academic Center and will be attended by all UO varsity athletes who are graduating. If not enough are graduating to fill the auditorium, remaining seats will be filled by their lawyers, sports agents, and probation officers. Approved “faculty” members may also attend when necessary to tell the graduating athletes when to stand, sit, raise their hands, etc. PlayStations will be provided for the graduating athletes to stave off boredom or accidental thought.
3. “Students” and their families (“fans”) will not be excluded from all the fun and excitement of “Northwest Dodge Dealers Graduation™”! The proceedings, including Coach Kelly’s peptalk (formerly known as “the graduation address”), will be shown on Jumbotrons at Legendary Hayward Field ™ and “students,” “faculty,” and their families may attend and will be seated according to the size of their contribution to the “O” Club over the twelve months preceding each year’s “Northwest Dodge Dealers Graduation™”. The Duck Cheerleaders will lead the cheering as each graduating athletes’s stats are shown on the Jumbotron.
4. Following the “Northwest Dodge Dealers Graduation™”, major athletes not already prohibited from so doing by terms of exclusive marketing contracts will offer a 15-minute opportunity to obtain autographs. “Students,” “faculty” and their families will form a “Duck Victory Cordon” on both sides of Agate Street to cheer the athletes as they speed by in their limousines. (Correctional system vans returning athletes to work camps will take an alternate route.)
5. After the conclusion of “Northwest Dodge Dealers Graduation™”, Duck Apparel will be offered for sale. A 2 percent discount will be offered to “students,” “faculty” and their families, and to maintain the festive atmosphere, all these groups will receive coupons good for $1 off a giant pizza at Tracktown (one per diploma, please).

yaaaawwwn.

According to Oregon Business Magazine, Kitzhaber’s economic strategy was developed in collaboration with Robert Young, an assistant professor of planning, public policy and management at the University of Oregon. Here’s the link:

http://www.oregonbusiness.com/ben/2865-jobs-watch-transformational-thinking

Dog says good bye Ernie Kent

Now is this a good thing or a bad thing – is it fair or unfair?

Tough call here: On the one hand, Kent did build a real program here which did result in occasional Pac 10 titles and deep runs in the NCAA tournament (getting to the elite 8 twice – in 03 and 07).

On the other hand, in big time college sports once you have established success your supposed to maintain that. Over the last 3 seasons the ducks are 41-51 and finished at or near the bottom of the Pac 10 the last two seasons.

So its so long Ernie but , while I don’t strongly disagree with this move, it does kind of suck that the guy who built the Ducks BB program to some kind of national prominence, doesn’t even get a chance to coach in the New Palace of RoundBall.

It would be good if some investigative reporting could be done here -George Schoeder – do you read this blog – to see exactly how much Phil Knight was behind this. Did Knight really not want Kent in his Palace?

How about the fact that Ernie Kent’s players seem to do a much better job staying out of jail?

I assume the Bellotti payout comes from the Athletic Dept? If so, they can keep throwing away cash, as long as they don’t come begging when they run out.

Dan Williams sat in on a meeting I had with an associate AD about the design of the Arena and its location between two residence halls. He was clearly there to control how much information was shared.

Dan was also present at the Ways and Means meetings about the Arena.

My understanding — I think UO Matters got ahold of the contract, perhaps they can clarify — is that one of Dave F’s later moves was to contract with Phil Knight to reserve parking space for the athlete center. Some of this is actually a mostly-empty lot up by the law school. Another one of Dave’s brilliant decisions. I wonder what UO is getting from Phil in return for this (apart from the new sports palaces). I hope it’s worth it. If you’re gonna be a whore, you should at least be sure to be well-paid.

I’d put even money on Grier outlasting Lariviere.

I would be furious if I were Larivierre. His reputation endangered, apparently because of earlier machinations of the athletic paymasters and Dave F. What a screwy idea, a $2.3 million golden parachute with no written record. How could anyone think a public university could hide that, or get away with it when/if it is exercised? Larivierre left holding the bag, either stiffing Bellotti (and inviting huge legal trouble), or going through with this smelly deal. I doubt that the search committee or the chancellor briefed him on this while he was still at Kansas!

Another odd thing is Lorraine Davis getting $30K/month for this. That is 2/3 or more of the salary of the president, and comparable to or more than the provost. What can she possibly be doing that is worth that much? Why is the athletic department willing ot pay this much? As far as I can tell from what I read, she isn’t involved in recruiting and hiring the new coaches. Again, what can possibly justify $30K/month?

Why if someone decides to leave a job for another job should they be paid any amount for remaining years on the “contract” they are terminating. Why then let Bellotti leave at all? Why not have him clean the floors of the new Jaqua center instead? At least that way the UO would be getting something out of him.

Are you kidding me? This is absurd.

Quote of the day:

“Either something else is going on behind the scenes that we’re not privy to, or they negotiated the worst contract in sports history.”

From a devastating article in the April 3 Oregonian

http://blog.oregonlive.com/behindducksbeat/2010/04/legal_experts_question_univers.html

4/3/2010: “I think it’s unfair to blame this on Lariviere, it’s got Frohnmayer’s fingerprints all over it.”

Au contraire, it was Lariviere who fired Bellotti and became a pawn to Beaverton in record time. Frohnmayer would have let Bellotti go on a year or so more before the ESPN job magically fell out of the sky to sweep him away. Senior athletic administrators frequent comments last fall on how great Bellotti was as a sports commentator and that he would probably leave for a TV job seem more than coincidental… the plan was likely hatched the moment Bellotti became AD from small minds with big ambitions and access to a deep-pocketed donor who can make these things happen. And Lariviere bought it. And had lousy counsel to manage it.

If Lariviere is going to redeem himself in the slightest, he must prohibit his counsel from continuing to issue false statements to the public and quite possibly to the state board and AG. Bellotti was fired and it’s severance pay, end of story. THAT press can’t be any worse than this.

Unless of course the truth comes out about how Bellotti really got the ESPN job.

Welcome to big time sports, Mr. Lariviere.

Melinda Grier is married to Jerry Lidz? We did not know that, Dude.

The president needs to admit bellotti was fired and the $2.3m is severance due – bellotti’s name and legacy is being tarnished because they hatched a stupid explanation to save face for all. Administration feared the public outcry that would come with firing a faithful coach they only gave months to succeed as AD, but they were too short-sighted to anticipate the outcry over a seemingly undue exit check. If the president is to succeed he needs better than “mock” counsel.

They will never admit who is really calling the shots though, that is certain.

And with Lidz in Salem the final word from the AG may well be that it is a personnel matter and not subject to public disclosure.

I am furious. Have you hired anyone lately at the UO? The hoops you have to jump through are incredible. Why does the athletic department get a complete pass on hiring someone with NO CONTRACT at all? Where was HR? Where was affirmative action? Where was payroll? You can’t just sweep this under the rug. It is an epic failure. I am disgusted.

Also the present value of Bellotti’s contract cannot be $2.3 million. As long as we are giving away the store and we have to be oh so scared about the legal implications of somehow not honoring the ghost of a verbal contract – shouldn’t we consider the present value of the amount owed?

We are run by a bunch of idiots.

I think we wanted to believe so thoroughly that Lariviere was going to be the saving grace for the university. We dreamed of a President that would keep the university an academic based university instead of moving into a corporation based university full of administrative greed. I am disappointed. From the actions on this latest administrative blunder of verbal contracts…I don’t see anyone standing up for academia and saying NO. There stands before us another administrator trying their best to lie their way out of a lie. I am ashamed. Lariviere has given us an ugly black eye.

Begs to ask the question…what has the administration promised him when he retires?

Lariviere calmly and effectively took charge and took responsibility for the Bellotti buyout yesterday and I believe him when he says he will insist on more accountability and openness in his administration. Time will indeed tell.

Of course I’d have loved to hear him say that a university paying men millions to play games and millions to quit playing them has lost its moral compass. But that’s a societal failing, one that it would be politically suicidal for a UO president to take on. A firewall between academics and athletics is the best one can realisitically hope for.

Bellotti came off yesterday as a rich man and a simple man who believes that he is entitled to more money. But Lariviere, crouched beside him, came off as the savvier and more powerful man. That’s what you want to see.

I generally enjoy the dog’s barking, but comments like this:
“I might want to see a funding model that embraces the scholarship of ideas and academic integrity more than counting beans”
make me gag. Let’s see – “scholarship of ideas” vs. “counting beans” (no pun intended, I’m sure) – which one sounds better…? That’s right up there in my book with “so, you don’t want to make abortion illegal… how many babies have you killed today?”

There are serious, difficult questions in increasing and allotting university resources, and pretty soon we might to make the same “least bad” kind of choices that CA public universities are making now “gee, do we pretty much eviscerate expensive programs like music or do we go on-line exclusively at the 100 level (or both)?”

Maybe, just maybe, we can figure out a model which is transparent and fair enough so that people can make difficult choices now instead of horrific choices later. I can’t say if the current model fits that – I just don’t know – but I’m not going to dismiss it out of hand. If we don’t count beans, we won’t have any.

Does UOMatters have an opinion on the University of Wisconsin’s recent decision to sever ties to Nike due to labor issues in their overseas factories?

Dog,

You can howl about “creation of knowledge” all you like, but the days when that paid the bills outside the sciences are long gone. In theory, that’s what state support should be about – investment in scholarship for the benefit of the public – but we all know where that has gone.

Without state support you’re looking at donor support or tuition. Tuition is what we directly control, and there we can either go small and expensive or go with “butts in seats,” as you say. I’ve been on campuses which have followed each strategy and I have a slight preference for the latter. Someone whose parents are paying $25K for tuition feels mighty entitled to my time, and of course keeping tuition within reach does mean that a wider range of students have access to our university.

Or, we could go with neither strategy and just cut faculty pay…

Wow, now they’re tracking their whereabouts?

While we’re at it,how about posting the athletic department mental health records on the web?

Hey, how about all the administrators and faculty?

Did you read the Coffeegate section on the Keep Ken Coalition website?

http://keepkencoalition.org/Coffeegate.aspx

From the e-mail correspondence between adjunct professor Ken DeBevoise and Political Science department chair Lars Skalnes, it’s clear that Skalnes acted in an arbitrary and petty fashion towards DeBevoise, overriding at the last minute DeBevoise’s decision to hold his class in a coffee shop. What’s astounding is that he justifies this by quoting a section of the Faculty Handbook that in fact indicates that it’s perfectly fine to have classes outside the classroom, so long as the professor is prudent about it. Then, he utterly refuses to engage DeBevoise’s reasoned arguments that point this out.

Ordinarily, such an incident would be entirely trivial. But it came just a couple of months before Skalnes fired DeBevoise, and it gives some insight into Skalnes’s degree of openness to being contradicted by a subordinate.

I agree it’s not OK to tell them they need to buy something, or hold class somewhere they feel they should. Not a firing offense though.

Depends – do your courses (the content, format, and the manner in which you lead them) inspire and encourage passionate intellectual debate, every single session? Do your courses challenge students to such an extent that once they have completed one, they no longer believe in the methods of 99% of the other professors on campus, nor in the value of their tuition dollars?

That Skalnes and the PS department can’t find a way to keep somebody so well respected by such bright and passionate students and alumni is pathetic. There has, for many years now, been a ken “cult” within the PS majors, and for very good reason.

Lariv says

“The quality of a university is determined by its faculty.”

and UO Matters notes

“In my experience, good students don’t hurt either.”

So, UO Matters, while you confessedly are no economist, let me ask: in a situation of finite “resources” i.e. money, should Lariv take money from the pool for increased faculty salaries, and instead use it for merit scholarships to attract better students?

Rumors, rumors: Rumor control reports that Brad Shelton’s new budget model has already translated into new money for some academic departments for next year, and that Pres Lariviere has developed a 5 year plan to raise UO faculty salaries to the average of UO’s “peer” institutions, with the first round of raises starting in Sept.

Anyone ever ask where they come from, and who is making this stuff up OR… leaking info? Do we have to live on rumors?!?

Dog on Rumors:

You readers can believe this or not but at the CAS Department Heads meeting on Monday April 19th the results of the Shelton model were essentially unveiled and later that afternoon preliminary budgets were sent to various CAS departments – most of them received increases in their basic operating budgets that are commensurate with the simple fact of enrollment growth. So yes, that did happen.

What will happen in the realm of faculty raises is still unclear -there are a lot of rumors floating around on that one and none are credible enough to report.

Dog woofs: wow, I love fat cats! This will be good.

Now before anyone gets super excited that the new budget model has instantaneously transformed the UO into a decent institution, let’s back up a moment and consider it.

The Budget in a Nutshell document by Shelton is useful, but the allocations to SHC, majors and degrees are already part of the way that college base budgets are determined. This just specifies a 50/30/20 breakdown so it becomes more formulaic.

However, this 50/30/20 is only aggregated at the College level and not passed on to individual departments who vary greatly on the 50/30/20 breakdown. Hence, one department will be subsidizing another department, as usual.

So my prediction is that a) yes extra money is now available due to increased enrollment, b) some of that money could be spent to scale up instructional resource to meet that but c) the equivalent of redirecting funds to “Johnson Hall” like projects will occur at the School/College level because, hey, its now their money to be responsible with. So I personally anticipate business as usual and since I am not a fat cat (because I am a dog), I personally will see a marginal increase in my salary in September (I predict 3.5%) and life will go one as usual.

1. Over crowded classrooms in shit spaces
2. Inadequate parking
3. Same old curriculum year in and year out.
4. Continued appalling lack of graduate students at a “research University”
5. The UOmatters blog will not become insignificant as predicted by its author
6. But we might have a basketball coach by then …

UOMatters, I think you definitely deserve a lot of credit in keeping people informed and in acting as a needed gadfly. This is really good news. Change was needed, in a big, big way. Thanks for your efforts.

A dedicated reader

We all need to keep up the pressure to make sure that Dave F is included in this scandal. Also we need not forget what the rest of the administration has been doing without legislative approval…raises, reorganizations, promotions of their own. If you think our house is clean getting rid of a lawyer…think again and keep cleaning until their all gone. Bring education back as the reason we all put in a days work.

I hope that President Lariviere has taken steps to lock up Melinda’s office, email, files, and access so that he can have investigators go through everything. She had her hands in a whole lot more than just athletics. If this change to transparency is going to happen, he should start out in compliance with state laws. He will find out just what the administration has been up to through Melinda’s documents. In fact if he wanted to do the job proper he should lock up all the administration including AAEO and have it all investigated. It may surprise him to find out what they have been doing. Clean up properly and he would be nationally known for his actions toward transparency. We would be known for our turn toward education being our priority instead of being a money making machine for athletics and administrators. Ya can’t argue with that.

The adults take charge. Melinda is not the only one who will be getting a time-out.

From: Human Resources
Date: Apr 25, 2010 10:29:42 PDT
Subject: [HR] Moffitt selected to manage athletics department’s business operations
Reply-To: [email protected]

TO: University of Oregon faculty and staff

FROM: Lorraine Davis, Interim Director of Intercollegiate Athletics

I am pleased to announce that Jamie Moffitt of the University of Oregon School of Law has accepted an appointment to become Executive Senior Associate Athletic Director for Finance and Administration within the UO Department of Intercollegiate Athletics.

Jamie is currently the associate dean for finance and operations at the law school, where she has served since 2003. During her time at the law school, she reorganized the school’s financial structure, implemented new annual budgeting processes, designed new financial reporting practices, and improved the school’s human resource and contracting processes to conform to campus best practices. Prior to joining the university, Jamie held private sector leadership positions as a senior executive at a venture-backed technology company in Boston and as a consultant with McKinsey & Company, a global management consulting firm.

Jamie’s appointment to the new position in the Department of Intercollegiate Athletics will begin May 1.

She will direct all aspects of the department’s business operations. A key element of her role will be assessing the department’s ongoing needs. She and her team of financial and human resource professionals will ensure that the organizational structure, staffing, and financial resources are in place to achieve department priorities.

As interim director of intercollegiate athletics, I sought creation of this new role as a means of attending to ongoing issues and long-term goals within the department. The Department of Intercollegiate Athletics has experienced a period of rapid growth and success. This new position will help the department to develop and implement the necessary budgeting, financial, human resource, and contractual practices to support this expansion.

I am grateful to Jamie for her willingness to accept this vitally important position. Her experience in finance and operations at the school of law, combined with her personal background in athletics, make her the ideal person to fill this new role. As an undergraduate at Harvard University she served from 1989 to 1991 as captain of the women’s tennis team. She also competed for a year on the Women’s Professional Tennis Circuit.

Jamie received her A.B. (economics) from Harvard, her M.A.L.D. (international business) from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, and her J.D. from Harvard Law School. She currently teaches classes in accounting and negotiation.

Please join me in welcoming Jamie Moffitt in her new role to the Department of Intercollegiate Athletics.

So with Dave F “teaching” a course at the law school in leadership I wonder if Melinda will be teaching a course in Ethics and compliance with law.

The evidence from developing countries is mixed. The combination of a bad public school system and a ban on child labor is obviously problematic. Many families have some children working and use the money to pay the school fees of the others. You think taking away that choice will make them better off? Maybe, maybe not. If it’s illegal for a Nike factory to hire teenage girls, who do you think *will* hire them? When you are dealing with people’s lives, you owe it to them to be realistic.

When did the US ban child labor? Not until we had decent free public schools.

But I’m touchy about this, having started my first job at age 13, illegally, and at less than the minimum wage too. You think kids don’t learn anything important working?

The comment above is right on. The moderate faculty and students cannot keep quiet and let this happen again.

UOMatters said: “The moderate faculty and students cannot keep quiet and let this happen again.” Could UOMatters please tell us what the pronoun “this” refers to?

Sorry Dog, I should have included “it depends”.

The only way to top what’s happened so far would be for Frohnmayer to get the interim Pres gig at Univ of Washington.

Kinda surprised this blog has not covered the DPS’s recent story in the register Guard about becoming a police department. Where is that place getting all that money? I have heard DPS has hired many supervisors and has openings for many more. I also heard DPS has bought a bunch of cars and an ATV and has also bought some big screen televisions for their new office. Aren’t we in a recession right now with cuts across the boards? Think I will look into some salary information to see how much this is costing students. How much will becoming a police department cost? We do not need this sort of thing on our campus and never have.

Hey, wassa matter with those big bucks for public safety? Ya want all that money going to the library? Waste all that dough on books and stuff? After, all this is a public university! Next you’ll be criticizin the athletic program!

As for the new armed cops, one thing I’ll say for that guy Larry Riviera: he got his head screwed on straight, better than that old guy Dave.

About the possible (grant-dependent) 13th redesign; Not only is it going to be better and safer for everyone (bikes, peds, and cars), the 13th section isn’t even the important part of the project. The rest of it is a redesign of Alder between Franklin and 19th, creating a two way “cycle track” on one side of the road. 13th between Alder and Kincaid is actually being used to pick up on-street parking that is being moved off of Alder (North of 13th). The fact that parking on 13th is being increased and we are STILL calling it a nice, safety-focused redesign is a testament to the hard work of the bike/ped planners working for the city. This project deserves the support of the UO community.

The advantage of the scholarships to top students — I think the bar should be higher — is the hope that it would keep more of them in Oregon, and at OUS schools; we disportionately (compared to other states) lose top students to out of state schools.

Economists can argue all they want about whether financial aid (including loans) ends up in increased access or higher tuition. Probably some of both, is my non-economist guess. Are the economists that much better at figuring these things out? Not judging by how little they agree on anything.

The male/female disparity could easily be cured by taking into SATs, where males have an advantage, as well as grades.

The Dudley plan is different than the Lariviere plan, that doesn’t mean they couldn’t both happen.

At least, it’s good to see a candidate who at least is mouthing serious positive things for higher education.

Kitzhaber, what say you?

Regarding those horrible combo ID/student account/debit cards, the UO doesn’t have them. We have plain old student IDs for checking out books and getting discounts on movie tickets, a nice website and Oregon Hall for taking care of our tuition/financial aid, and the ability to choose our own banks.

It’s a great system.

More on politics and higher education — Kitzhaber’s education plan is a unified super-board of education encompassing K-12 through graduate school. This seems to be the opposite of Dudley’s decentralization notions, and completely at odds (from what is known so far) with the Lariviere plan for UO.

Too bad, since there are other things from Kitzhaber that I like. From Dudley too. It may be a tough choice in November.

The Bellamy exchange with the AD implies that annual giving to athletics is $30 million last time around. The UO Foundation report has $78.5 million in gifts total in the most recent year reported.

Is that really correct, 3/8 or so of total giving going to athletics?

Does this not say something interesting about priorities of the University’s boosters? Or does it reflect on the fund-raising operation?

Dog on police

Cause Dogs love chasing cops …

Part of the agenda here is Arena Coverage. Remember why the Eugene Celebration got moved – not enough cops to cover both UO football game
and celebration.

There is some concern that the required Arena security (not that its gonna sell out for basketball given the non-competitiveness of both our teams at the moment) will require more “UO police”.

Still, this is all stupid – on the other hand, maybe Dog trades their tenure in for a badge and a gun so that I can accidentally shoot UO administrators at Arena games – now
that’s a plan ….

A UO Police Department has been a priority for Frances for years. It drove her decisions to hire Turkiewicz and Kevin Williams – both with police experience, both disasters. But Anonymous is right that ultimately Lariviere’s approval is behind this.

Need to update this info promptly

Charles Martinez Jr., Ph.D.
Research Scientist
Oregon Social Learning Center
e-mail

Active research projects
• Adolescent Latino Acculturation Study (NIDA, PI)
• Latino Youth and Family Empowerment Project – II (NIDA, PI)
• Linking the Interests of Famliies and Teachers (NIMH, Co-I)
• Parent Child Study (NIMH, Co-I)

Primary research and clinical interests
Dr. Charles R. Martinez, Jr. is a clinical psychologist and research scientist at the Oregon Social Learning Center in Eugene, Oregon and directs the OSLC Latino Research Team. He is the principal investigator on National Institutes of Health research projects designed to examine risk and protective factors involved in linking acculturation to behavioral health outcomes for Latino families and to develop and test culturally specific interventions for Latino families with youngsters at risk of behavioral health problems. His general substantive interest’s center on identifying factors that promote healthy adjustment for families and children following stressful life events, (e.g. changes in family structure, socioeconomic status, physical and/or emotional health, acculturation, and immigration status), taking into consideration the cultural contexts in which families operate. Dr. Martinez has served on the Oregon Governor’s Ethnic and Racial Task Force, the Governor’s Council on Alcohol and Drug Abuse Programs, and
(is a publicly elected member of the Eugene, District 4J School Board) incorrect since 2009.
(He currently serves as the Vice Provost for Institutional Equity and Diversity at the University of Oregon) will be incorrect 8/11
and teaches graduate courses in multiculturalism and diversity in his role as an Associate Professor in the College of Education. He has published many scientific papers related to basic and applied cross-cultural prevention research, minority health disparities, and Latino behavioral health. He is a nationally known consultant on organizational diversity issues, cross-cultural research, and community engagement. Dr. Martinez has received numerous national, state, and local awards for his work, including the ‘2003 Community, Culture, and Prevention Science Award’ from the Society for Prevention Research.

I wonder if Mike Bullis is going to approve Martinez’s Conflict of Commitment reports? If not he is going to take a hell of a pay cut.

I think you are right. Charles was hired precisely because he convinced Moseley he was an ineffectual paper pusher. And with his ridiculous Diversity Action Plans, he delivered. All the potential troublemakers spent all their energy drafting and revising silly plans – it was brilliantly ineffectual.

It was also a cynical soul destroying waste of good people’s energy and spirit, and a million or so a year in cash. All so Moseley could get bailed out of the lawsuit and Martinez could pad his paycheck.

Fuck them both.

So now that Charles is going back to teaching is he going to oppress and harass his students like he does the people he supervises? The college of Ed should give him only non credit courses so he has no power to ruin someones life like he has done as a VP. With his track record up to now…he can’t be trusted to be a teacher. The College of Ed needs to keep an eye on him…he clearly can’t be trusted.

dog says

at the moment, no one in J-hall can figure out how to implement a pay raise (funds are available but various strategies are at an impasse)

obviously nothing has happened yet
and our last pay raise was November 2008.

Another thing about parking this year — they make you pick up the permit at the public safety office — supposedly because last year, some of the permits didn’t make it through campus mail.

I guess if it was a pizza business, and there was a problem with the home delivery service, they’d cancel that and make you pick it up.

Or think about the post office …

THE NCAA’s CORE PURPOSE IS TO govern competition in a fair, safe, equitable and sportsmanlike manner, and to integrate intercollegiate athletics into higher education so that the educational experience of the student-athlete is paramount.

And this dear folks is right off their web site. Here is their core values…

The Association – through its member institutions, conferences and national office staff – shares a belief in and commitment to:

• The collegiate model of athletics in which students participate as an avocation, balancing their academic, social and athletics experiences.

• The highest levels of integrity and sportsmanship.

• The pursuit of excellence in both academics and athletics.

• The supporting role that intercollegiate athletics plays in the higher education mission and in enhancing the sense of community and strengthening the identity of member institutions.

• An inclusive culture that fosters equitable participation for student-athletes and career opportunities for coaches and administrators from diverse backgrounds.

• Respect for institutional autonomy and philosophical differences.

• Presidential leadership of intercollegiate athletics at the campus, conference and national levels.

It must be true..its on their web site.

What is screwball about it? There’s a body of social science literature to support it. Controversial, to be sure, as one would expect. I suggest you read up on John Lott’s research, and the trouble it has caused him in his social science career.

If the idea of being locked in a classroom with a lunatic with an arsenal, or a terrorist, with no other guns anywhere nearby, is reassuring to you, my hat is off to your powers of logical reasoning, you’re mega light years ahead of me.

Issue guns to all the classified staff? No, only to those trained to use them. It’s called the “police”.

I don’t especially want to be armed when I go about my duties on campus. For one thing, I don’t want the responsibility of saving everyone in case of an attack.

But I would feel more secure with an armed police presence on campus, and I think I’d feel better with concealed carry allowed on campus, just as it is most other places.

And I certainly don’t feel especially threatened when I step off campus onto Thirteenth Street.

It’s nice to live in a pretend world where one can be safe in a world where only the bad guys have guns. But it can also be dangerous.

I would suggest that UO MATTERS stick to UO MATTERS and leave to others the social commentary on the New York mosque, on policy toward illegal immigrants, etc.

Ditto for Wim Wievel, he’s employed to run Portland State, not to be delivering social commentary.

Ditto. UO Matters performs a very valuable service and is free to discuss what it thinks is important. Furthermore, anyone who teaches, teaches kids who may be in the situation of young Mr. Lopez. That makes the DREAM act a UO matter, indeed, and a matter for almost any educator. And since educators must be informed and aware of current topics in the news, these too are within the purview of UO matters.

Dog is Delighted to see that
the UO is getting still more tuition dollars without any commensurate increase in instructional support (or pay raises).

Way to go Provost Bean

From the budgetmodel web site:

As of late Friday afternoon, enrollment numbers look very good. The number of students enrolled on Friday was 22,464, a 7.6% increase over the same date last year. The total Student Credit Hour enrollment was 318,385, a 7.1% increase over the same time last year. Based on the past few years, we expect both the head count and the SCH count to increase substantially over the next couple of weeks.

I think the rankings are weighted functions of the variables, with weights determined by discipline. So if the dogs in the field don’t care about the number of non-asian minority faculty in the field, the NRC ranking ignores it.

So the athletic department is going to have to take an unanticipated $8 million out of the legacy fund to make the arena payments.

I guess maybe those perfessers on the senate budget committee at the time of the build/no build decision, who said that the athletic department’s expensive outside financial consultants were making wildly overoptimistic revenue projections, were not as dumb as the athletic people and the UO administration were saying at the time.

A Modest Proposal: 16% More Freedom and Administrator Gladiator Contests

By Diogenes Duck

As long as UO faculty salaries remain at the bottom of our peer group at 84% of AAUP averages (and administrators’ salaries remain at the top of theirs), we should take the initiative to reduce our own workloads by 16%. How would this be accomplished in practical terms? Here are some concrete suggestions that could be easily implemented on an individual basis:

1. Teach 16% less each quarter by taking a few more sick days each term (or roughly the equivalent of about a week-and-a-half fewer classes per term). By the time you retire, that accumulation of sick days isn’t going to be worth shit. Use them now.

2. Perform 16% less service. University committee work? Forget it. What about Department committee work? Only if it doesn’t conflict with yoga, that doctor’s appointment next week, or aroma therapy the week after….

3. After tenure, instead of writing that next article or monograph, do what countless tenured professors have done for decades: take up a new hobby. If you don’t like golf, then how about painting? Why not write that novel you’ve always wanted to?

In other words, we can choose to look at the glass as half empty or half full. Rather than viewing our jobs as professors as woefully undervalued by the university while the jobs of administrators and coaches are grossly overvalued, it would be much more constructive to view the less competitive salaries we receive as the freedom to do 16% less work!

If this doesn’t get the administrators’ attention, we could always resort to something more dramatic, such as demanding that the university pay off its debt on the Matthew Knight Arena by arranging events guaranteed to fill more seats than the currently scheduled basketball and wrestling events. How about Gladiator Contests at Autzen and Matt Court!?! Overpaid upper administrators and coaches could combine their fetishization of athletics with their love of bloated salaries. Imagine the thrill of seeing Jim Bean take on Chip Kelly in a gladiator contest to the death. The winner would get to double his salary and claim the titles of both Head Football Coach and Provost of the University. What a crowd pleaser! Would it be thumbs up or down for the Provost? That would be up to the Duck Godfather (no, not President Lariviere, you dummy) to decide in response to the crowd’s reaction. Or how about the Battle of the Old Administrators: Lorraine Davis vs. Frances Dyke! Or The Battle of the Donor Kiss-ups: Dave Frohnmayer vs. ??? (come to think of it, Dave would probably win that one with his hands tied behind his back.) Sponsored by P.K. Productions.

A Modest Proposal: 16% More Freedom and Administrator Gladiator Contests, Pt. 2

If this doesn’t get the administrators’ attention, we could always resort to something more dramatic, such as demanding that the university pay off its debt on the Matthew Knight Arena by arranging events guaranteed to fill more seats than the currently scheduled basketball and wrestling events. How about Gladiator Contests at Autzen and Matt Court!?! Overpaid upper administrators and coaches could combine their fetishization of athletics with their love of bloated salaries.

Imagine the thrill of seeing Jim Bean take on Chip Kelly in a gladiator contest to the death. The winner would get to double his salary and claim the titles of both Head Football Coach and Provost of the University. What a crowd pleaser! Would it be thumbs up or down for the Provost? That would be up to the Duck Godfather (no, not President Lariviere, you dummy) to decide in response to the crowd’s reaction.

Or how about the Battle of the Old Administrators: Lorraine Davis vs. Frances Dyke! Or The Battle of the Donor Kiss-ups: Dave Frohnmayer vs. ??? (come to think of it, Dave would probably win that one with his hands tied behind his back.) Sponsored by P.K. Productions.

There is no way the Dog can leave the Provost’s letter to the faculty alone:

Below is the Dog Re-write:

Colleagues (you too dog):

Welcome back. The University is friggin’ great. We have strong enrollments thanks to a huge incoming class of California beans, er, I mean students, stu-dents; strong grant funding (last year was a record) and strong fundraising, especially in the area of athletic facilities. The only weak spot is state support, but screw them. Since mid spring we have taken two rescissions (taking back money they had already allocated) totaling about $10.5M and expect more to come. So far they have all been absorbed centrally in a sufficiently opaque manner such that no one will ever figure out the absorption actually came out of the faculty salary increase budget. The new budget model pumped about $24M additional tuition dollars out to the schools and colleges. This is particularly remarkable since we only actually gained about $6M in additional tuition revenue – I will leave it up to the investigative arm of UOmatters to figured out where the missing 18M from last year really went; at least that will give them something to do. However, in order to fund some my pet er, I mean, strategic, yeah that’s it, strategic initiatives we had to ask for about $3M back and we thank your The rescissions had depleted the central strategic fund, even though such a fund is a mythical concept at the UO.

The governor announced a raise freeze at the time of the spring rescission. This is really friggin’ great because now I have a reason not to give faculty raises! Life is bliss. For the time being there will be no across the board merit or COLA increases. We are able to do limited equity and retention adjustments but only to people that have been nice to me. If I can ever figure out who UOmatters, Old Man, Roasted Duck and that damn dog are, you can bet I will invent the non-retention raise.

On another note, new National Research Council (NRC) ratings of our research doctoral programs are strong, reaffirming UO’s competitiveness with other top research institutions across the country. This is mega friggin’ great because the UO has no graduate students any more and we haven’t been a Tier I research University for about 10 years now. The NRC data were from five years ago, and I am confident that UO is in an even better position now based on our continued success in faculty hiring, major increases in research grant expenditures, and recent growth in graduate applications and enrollment – note, I can also say I am confident when there is no data to support my assertions – I learned that in Business School.

I would have preferred Uri Geller….

Dear Readers – I have accidentally deleted all the comments since 9/29/2010. My apologies!

I love it when parking rates increase for university employees and the athletics department parks for free. I paid a ridiculous $400.00 this year for a parking permit that does not guarantee me a space but the intercollegiate athletics department pays nothing to park. They also get PERS retirement. Since when does intercollegiate athletics provide a public service? They don’t. Must be nice.

About those parking fee increases by DPS they do do do need the money since athletics screwed everyone by sticking DPS with the bill for the arena parking spaces. You can thank athletics for the rising cost of parking on campus. Thanks for nothing again athletics.

UO only has about 4000 employees, not 20,000. ~1500 are classified.

Dog Barks Science and Numbers

1) Correct, the UO employs about
4000 people. Just go to ir.uoregon.edu/alpha and count
the unclassified and classified lists

2) On football head injuries.

Yes its a problem but no its not 20 G’s involved. I tried to find the “studies” that showed this and couldn’t.

The analogy with a 20 mph car crash shows how little basic science is understood these days.

what’s the energy of a car moving
20 mph:

1/2 mv^2

let’s assume at impact, a swift 200 lb corner back has a velocity of 20 mph. This is 15 times lower than the mass of a typical car so how could the energy impact be the same …?

What’s really going on is a blow to the head is a pressure wave.
Pressure is force per unit area.

So if I jump on you UOmatters I am exerting mg lbs of force but that is impacting UO matters over the size of my footprint (which maybe is 5% the area of UOmatters) so
the pressure is a lot and I can break ribs that way.

Its force per unit area that matters in contact sports – not force itself. This is why boxing hurts a lot …

dog says oh boy a physics flame war – not really appropriate for UOmatters so I will only do one rebuttal

In fact, Old Man’s biological view
is mostly correct. Sudden deceleration is a manifestation of
the force applied and indeed if the
article had talked about “car crashes” in that way, rather than in just bulk energy, it would have been better.

Still when the head contacts the window its force per unit area that’s going to determine the extent of biological damage.

PS – dog’s can be females as well

I’m not a physics professor, but I declare this thread over.

Dog on Bean op-ed

Intellectually he is correct on
some of this, but he never, as typical, addressed the real world.

In the comments there is a post by
Salemduck claiming that, since 1995, the UO has taken in 2.1 billion external dollars. There is no justification for this claim. I imagine if we really did have 2.1 billion real dollars, faculty might have gotten say a 1% raise.

This entire situation remains one of balance and we are too busy defending what we do and therefore we (i.e. Bean and his predecessors) choose not to aggressively pursue new educational directions in the same fervor that we support athletic infrastructure and subserviently defend ourselves.

Touting the Jock Box as an “academic facility” is disingenuous at best since there is no (and not even close) similar facility for just ordinary students, you know, those beans we keep counting.

Our Comment Policy

UO Matters posts almost all comments that make it through the blogger spam checks. We occasionally delete comments that include personal attacks. Attacks on policies, on the other hand, are pretty much the point of our blog.

So, while we might delete a comment that described a person as a cretin we would leave up a comment describing a policy as cretinous.

fwiw, people might want to check the interesting history of the words cretin and cretinous before using them!

I find the rationalizations for “Overtimegate” to be somewhat self-serving, arrogant, and, well, “clueless.” The overtime has been justified, sort of, on the grounds that it was necessary to get the job done. Plausible, but I still wonder how the other campuses managed, without, apparently, flouting the will of the Governor? But mainly, the justification for the overtime has been linked to the staff in question being “our most vulnerable colleagues” (Lariviere) and “lowest-paid employees” (politically experienced reader). Which is it, sympathy for our supposedly underpaid union staff – try selling that to the public! – or the need to get the job done?

In any case, however justified or unjustified the overtime was, the Governor did order the furloughs. Perhaps “the [G]overnor and his aides missed an opportunity to distinguish budget tricks from real decisions and effective leadership.” But Kulongoski is, well, the elected Governor. Unlike our reader or even Dr. Lariviere. If the latter think they are so much better qualified, perhaps they should be running this election cycle?

At the very least, Lariviere chose to pull an end-run around the governance of the state. If he believed the overtime to be so essential and well-justified, why didn’t he just announce what he was doing up front? Now it appears, because it very likely is true, that he chose to try to pull a fast one on the state. And now, not surprisingly, he has been found out, it must be said, UO Matters style.

It will be interesting to see how this plays in public opinion, and not just on campus, where we are called upon to support “our President.” (And telling that our President merits a cap while our governor does not.) I hope this doesn’t cause major trouble for UO, for the autonomy plan, and I hope it doesn’t result in Lariviere’s departure. But I think things stand on slightly shaky ground right now.

It appears from comments here and on other websites that perhaps other campuses did something similar? I wonder then if somebody “leaked” the information on UO and Lariviere to make him look bad? Given the enmity between OUS/Pernsteiner and UO/Lariviere, this does not seem out of the question. Anybody know anything? Seems like a mission for the RG and Oregonian higher ed aces. Or maybe for Willamette Week? Or even Eugene Weekly or the Emerald? With all this journalistic talent, surely the truth will come out soon!

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

I have data on reporting grades “more than Parental Oversight”

10 years of big intro courses, 300+ student athletes. Of the fraction that are failing at the time of the request for grades, *all* failed the course. Some small fraction of those passing at the time of requested reports also failed.

Therefore, the reporting of grades did not prevent those who were failing from failing. And, without knowing the source of causation, some more failed. So I stopped reporting grades, maybe my report were the cause for that small fraction to fail. Certainly, it did not change the course of those who were failing.

A reader posts this comment on the closing of the EMU Post Office. I agree that the international students will suffer the most. And of course, they can only vote with their $. Not enough, apparently.

Attached: A memo from the Postmaster re the closing of the EMU post office.

It’s been a good 11-year run for my on-campus PO Box.  Now I have to drive to get my mail, or change everything to use my home address.  It’s no real hardship for me — heck, I have a good-paying job with benefits, and I have a car that I can use to pick up my mail, so I’m not going to be the first to complain.  The students who use the EMU post office, especially international students who got friendly, helpful services in multiple languages (thanks, Greg!), will be ill-served by this change.

DO NOT POST

Can you please put what email to email you at? I want to send you some information but do not want to post on here. I can email you though. I can’t remember if it is [email protected] or something else. Help please.

Note: along with a big promotional pay increase,Randy Geller was given an “A” contract which carries timely notice. Contrast this to Officers of Administration who are either hired or promoted in the VPFA division who are given “F” contracts which do not carry timely notice and are told that “A” contracts are being phased out. In the absence of written personnel policies Human Resources will rubber stamp the actions of the most powerful – any wonder their brand of inconsistency breeds unionization.

Or perhaps because she is a woman and he is a man.

To above – Yes, that must be it. He’s a good lawyer. Thanks for contributing to the discussion Randy!

I am the 9:52 a.m. poster. Anybody savoring the irony of the fact that Melinda Grier now teaches employment discrimination? Well, to 4 or 5 law students, anyway.

Sounds like the honeymoon is about over for the new, open, transparent Obama oops I mean Lariviere UO adminstration!

Denecke and Geller:
Both Denecke and Geller may have been hired, without proper searches, as hard luck cases. It appears to this Old Man that both may have ruined their careers in the outside world by a slavish willingness to do whatever the previous UO Administration asked of them. For Randy, it may have been sitting on records requests; for Elizabeth it may have been delivering a quorum opinion to fit the desires of that Administration. Who knows — just guessing. But, if that speculation is right, release of the documents regarding their hiring might embarrass a lot of people.

Amen to the speedy recovery for President Lariviere. And all the best to Jim Bean while he is filling in. I haven’t always agreed with their leadership, but I wish them well, both personally and as UO officials.

You may not be an economist, an economics professor, a physicist, or an English professor but it is my feeling that you are wrong in thanking Scott Woodward for shedding light on the imbalance between athletics and academics at the UO. His comments didn’t do any of us any favors.

He stated FIRST that the academic institution was an embarrassment. With that he implied that all economists, economics professors, physicists, Dogs, Ducks, English professors, students, alumni, faculty and staff are an embarrassment. I would be willing to bet there are those in all areas of this university who would stand up and object to being characterized in this manner.

Is the state’s funding of higher education an embarrassment? Yes. Did he lead with that? No. Is there an imbalance in support (fiscal or otherwise) for things non academic? Probably. Did he lead with that? No. He attacked our people, our degrees, our research, our programs, and our reputation FIRST. That Woodward added those notes about state support and deterioration of academics at the expense of athletics is due to the fact that he probably had just realized what a giant pile of shit he’d stepped in.

I am disappointed that high profile figures at the UO like Dave Williford and Chip Kelly won’t take Woodward to task but I will be embarrassed if our administration rolls over on this one too. I am sick of our administration not taking a strong public stance on garbage like this.

Well, let’s look at it. The UW athletic director was impolitic, he said

“it’s an embarrassment what their academic institution is, and what’s happened to them as far as their state funding has gone.”

On the second point, we can all probably agree. On the first point, maybe it’s an exaggeration to call UO and “embarrassment” academically, but isn’t it kind of embarrassing what has happened to the overall UO academic reputation over the decades? Some people would point to the recent NRC report on graduate programs to show UO’s academic health, but (1) it is next to impossible to decipher what the rankings of the UO graduate programs really are; (2) in any case, what evidence there is indicates there is very little that is outstanding here; and (3) there is no analysis of what the trend over time is, i.e. are the UO graduate programs of higher or lower standing, overall, than 15 or 20 or 30 years ago?

And re the last, consider that

[UW Pres] Wise also wrote: “The University of Oregon has a long tradition as one of America’s top public universities. It is an excellent public institution of higher education that continues to serve the citizens of Oregon well, particularly in light of diminishing state support.”

Now if UO is so excellent, is really one of America’s top public universities, why all the moaning and groaning about the need for more financial support, higher faculty salaries, etc. etc.? Things seem to be going swell academically, so why the fuss? Of course, the University president could also reply that UO is great, but without more money, things will slide downhill into oblivion. But UO presidents have been saying that for decades. Why should anyone believe it now?

Dave Williford is essentially Phil Weiler’s counterpart in the AD.

Ms. Daugherty where can one begin. She wasn’t hired to do the plans. That fight with the feds is an old one and an easy fight to end when started. It goes like this….the UO will convince the FEDS that the UO will follow the rules and beg forgiveness for “not understanding“ the rules. Then the UO will carry as usual until the next fight. The AAEO office has done that for years well at least since 1995. Been there seen that.

After all, as proved over and over the UO only follows law when its to their favor. Well, its more like the administration will do what they want and claim no knowledge when they get caught…but first they will do what they want no matter what laws are broken, bent or ignored. Been there seen that.

Bringing attention to the lack of plans is a good smoke screen to what the administration is really up to these days.

Penny was hired to put her signature on all the Administration promotions and give her approval on all the reorganizations so the Administration could call it legal. And when everyone wakes up and notices that there may be a problem the administration will claim…”What! Our AAEO director signed the documents…what do you mean there‘s a problem?????” (anyone catching on here) Penny will hold the entire basket of blame (and she thought her ass kissing was getting her somewhere)….LOL!!!!

Penny’s history shows a pattern of ass kissing and bending rules. That’s why she was hired…to take the heat so “other issues” can be taken care of that strictly benefit the administration side of this campus.

As far as her pay…she isn’t making anything near what the administration is giving out in this “promotions and reorganization plan” to other people. If you notice Penny isn’t a VP like other people have been promoted to lately…like Linda King went from Director to VP. (how does that happen???) Penny is still a lowly little director with no promotion or new title. Boo Hoo :( Even though I think she is probably making more that she ever made in her entire career…she hasn’t been “promoted” like the rest of the “new administration” the University has now. (Like how many VP’s does it take to run a University anyway???) Her only job was to approve the promotions.

So to keep the faculty and others eye on the AAEO plans and the fact there may be a violation there….diverts attention from the constant reorganization of the administrative side of campus into a corporation like administration. Which by the time people wake up…the University will be looking and acting like a corporation so…they will be a corporation. Simple tactic…works well for them.

But to keep the heat on Penny for not doing her job is well worth the effort. The more heat the better…She deserves everything coming her way.

My thoughts on Penny Daugherty part 1.

Ms. Daugherty where can one begin. She wasn’t hired to do the plans. That fight with the feds is an old one and an easy fight to end when started. It goes like this….the UO will convince the FEDS that the UO will follow the rules and beg forgiveness for “not understanding“ the rules. Then the UO will carry as usual until the next fight. The AAEO office has done that for years well at least since 1995. Been there seen that.

After all, as proved over and over the UO only follows law when its to their favor. Well, its more like the administration will do what they want and claim no knowledge when they get caught…but first they will do what they want no matter what laws are broken, bent or ignored. Been there seen that.

Bringing attention to the lack of plans is a good smoke screen to what the administration is really up to these days.

Penny was hired to put her signature on all the Administration promotions and give her approval on all the reorganizations so the Administration could call it legal. And when everyone wakes up and notices that there may be a problem the administration will claim…”What! Our AAEO director signed the documents…what do you mean there‘s a problem?????” (anyone catching on here) Penny will hold the entire basket of blame (and she thought her ass kissing was getting her somewhere)….LOL!!!!

Among Paul Olum’s imperious assertions was that the identified (though not yet signed) contractor for the RRP was found, after a national search, to be the only one willing and able to carry out the project. With respect to “willing”, when confronted with evidence that there had been no nationwide search, Olum ran a second search that invited folks to compete against an already selected developer (no surprise, no takers). With respect to “able”, the developer of choice went bankrupt before anything was developed. A new developer was found within days. From the beginning, our Administrations have tried to keep Faculty out of Park policy; it is conventional wisdom in the Park Trade that Faculty are a big nuisance.

Paul Olum was, indeed, a fine president — except on the Research Park, where he clearly resented Faculty intrusion. (This old man wrote the comment directly above yours.)

The plan. A carefully crafted document that butters over everyone’s concerns…(those that are not administrators or donors that is) to look like a plan that includes all. But its missing a few things. What happens to retirement plans, medical benefits, cost of living raises, grievance procedures, unions, salary caps on administrators, faculty senate and other committees and grant monies. I’m sure I left things out…I’m just asking. The university so far has trashed employee trust between the elite admin and the faculty, classified and OA’s. So what’s written in stone for the commoners on campus?
Another comment: So the Chancellor gets paid less than the President, Provost and dyke, king and almost all other elitist administration at the U? That surprises me house or no house.

I oppose the New Partnership model because OSA (Oregon Students Association) tells me what to do. Their Executive Director made a political career of blindly opposing the UO Administration when she was ASUO President, just like I have.

I’m sure when the state “asks” the public workers to “contribute more” for their health and pension benefits, the Pernsteiner story will help persuade the classified staff to be part of the team effort.

And when they next “ask” this faculty member to take a voluntary pay cut, I will keep it in mind.

Dog to Dear UOmatters

You gotta to be kidding me on that professor outburst. That’s not an outburst – that’s a mini burst on the scale of dog outbursts to classes that are generally centered on their unwillingness and inability to think independently.

But the video, in fact, does highlight the main problem here. This is 2010 – the idea of the captive mass audience lecture should be fuckin’ dead by now. Its clear that it does not work.
In fact, you can’t find a single study that says it does work pedagogically – its just a cheap way to deliver material. I think that is an economic argument.

By the way, the dog does not have a pleasant side …

Looks like a leak war between Pernsteiner (who obviously has it in for Lariviere) and whoever has it in for Pernsteiner — too many suspects to know who, I’m not saying it’s Lariviere, he seems like a nice guy, maybe too nice for a nasty place like Oregon (the state) has become.

Whatever, all this sniping is not doing either the OUS or UO any good. The state is looking for places to cut, despite — or because of — their awful record of supporting Oregon universities, the higher education system is making itself very target rich.

UO had nothing to do with leaking these documents. Trust me.

Keep it up UOMatters. I am tired of these folks asking us to take in the chin again and again when it comes to budgets, all the while they line their fat purses.

I think we need a purge. You ought to post all provost, vice provost, vp and the like salaries and then total. And then add in the +50% for OPE. Let’s look at that grand total. Then we can brainstorm our own BIG ideas as to what we could do with that money as a means of demonstrating the opportunity cost of this gross fat.

dog says

isn’t it obvious by now that Lariviere’s distant hope, in this “New Partnerhsip” is that Phil Knight just gives the UO a billion dollars for Academics to define what the New Partnership really means?

Since that is not likely to happen and since the state of Oregon is mostly a poor hick state (and always has been – I can say this, I am a native, most of the rest of you are not) the New Partnership is mostly intellectual masturbation.

I want a truck like that! Of course I’ll take it out to the dirt roads. These trucks are a clear example of excess. Looks like they had some extra bucks to spend somewhere. Where did that come from? Furlough days?

I’m thinking its time for action instead of just speaking out…I’m thinking a petition needs to be developed and have EVERYONE sign. Have the petition state clearly NO CONFIDENCE in the present administration. Include the president. Dave F’s good buddy the chancellor and don’t forget the Board of Higher Ed. List the grievances (list UO Matters page as a reading source will do) suggest and list the changes needed (like throw these greedy elitist punks out!) and deliver it to the newly elected governor and demand he take action. I wonder what would happen.

For those of you that trust the president and believe “he’s a good guy” (because he got rid of a few incompetent deadheads). I’m saying…he is no friend of the University. His plan sucks and we are the one’s that will pay the price in the end. FLUSH! I can hear it now. All I see is… he is finishing the job that Dave F started.

We will all be loading our stuff in back of our trucks and leaving dodge if his plan is implemented.

RE: DPS uses sexual assault to justify more money

Speaking of the truck, and for what it’s worth, ASUO Senator Erin Altman (Seat 3: PFC) brought this up when DPS came to Student Senate to talk about the proposed UO Police on Nov. 10, 2010. Her comments included “If you could speak on your fiscal responsibility, because I don’t see it.” DPS Director Tripp said the truck was for hauling stuff.

The striking thing about the letters in the WSJ re the Lariviere plan is (1) neither of them addressed the actual merits or features of the plan itself; and (2) the obvious hatred of the letter-writers toward public higher education.

The first letter-writer obviously hates faculty — how offensive that they expect to get paid, especially with skyrocketing enrollment!

The second letter-writer obviously knows absolutely nothing about UO’s financial situation or how money is obtained and distributed here (and probably the same level of knowledge of other public universities; the guy is a research VP at a big pharmaceutical company, and graduate of a small private college).

Wretched as these letters may be, they may be telling in that they say something about how a significant fraction of the public feels about public higher education.

Manage your personal outrage this holiday season by doing homework. Anyone is able using the salary and other payroll expense calculator, http://rm.uoregon.edu/budget_ope and click on OPE work sheet for FY11. Just find your favorite administrator’s annual salary from http://ir.uoregon.edu/sites/ir/files/Unclassified%20060110%20to%20083110.pdf . Then follow these easy steps to disillusionment: Into cell B5 enter annual salary, for example $212,493. Then change cell B6 to 12, change cell B7 to N, change cell B9 to 5 and change B10 to 7. And stand back!
When you divide the contents of cell I30 by 260 the results are the total compensation for one, 8 hour work day.
That’s right kido, just $1, 047.71 per work day is what it costs the University of Oregon for a VPFA and the unintelligible holiday memo emailed from her AVP, HR well that probably only set us back $749.23.
Who’s tree are they flocking?

Dog Clarifies:

CAS-IT is not necessarily new – it was started about 18 months ago as a reaction to perceived NON service being supplied to CAS by Information Services (e.g. Don Harris).

CAS-IT is not really necessary and in my experience doesn’t really do much but nonetheless employs people.

However, Don Harris’s management of IS is beyond atrocious (not to mention a locked down building) and has seriously hurt our pace of cyber -infrastructure build out. The fact that he remains our campus CIO is, to this tired old dog, the most egregious of any of our administrative personnel issues at the UO.

The only explanations are that 1) no one cares about our IT enterprises or 2)no one understands how bad our IT situation is.

Reality is probably some weighted combination of 1 and 2 above.

“Virtualization, gee what’s that?” — Don Harris 2009

Interesting this contrast is brought up because it is an open secret that for the last few years Dyke has deployed her highly placed Lieutenants to spread rumors about Harris’ ineptitude. Unfortunate for Harris, his crew is lead by too many “grey beards” making tired excuses and holding back our technological infrastructure. Unfortunate too that Dyke is a gossip who used “good old boy” internal promotions to saddle the university with “peter principled” administrators in key leadership positions as Associate Vice Presidents. Dyke and Harris should both retire and take all their human speed bumps with them.

We all know Lariviere and Bean should fire some people. But Lariviere is busy with re-imagining UO.

Why doesn’t Bean take charge? He never wanted the Provost job anyway, he just took it out of a sense of duty. He’d hoped to have moved on to a better B-school by now. It never occurred to him he would still be dealing with Frances and Russ, 3 years later. He’s still hoping he’ll get that call, and then they will be the new guy’s problem.

Rumor has it Pernsteiner may ask for Lariviere’s resignation. Take him down too!

If that happens, Lariviere should say he will do whatever the new Governor wants him to do.

That would really be something — the UO Pres getting fired after two years — that would really help UO when it wants to hire on the national market!

Imagine — Jim Bean as Interim President and Russ Tomlin as Interim Provost!

Scott Coltrane, dean of CAS, is entering in his third year. This means he should be formally reviewed at the end of this year. Perhaps CAS faculty should ask that the review process, with faculty input, be revived for him. (Reviews of administrators were terminated by Frohnmayer.)

“A top search firm will assist us in identifying candidates and engaging the campus and larger community.” -Not the first time or the fifth.

Here is an idea that’s time has come: outsource all of Human Resources. Administratively the department is pure overhead and when complex strategies are needed the University has to bring in “hired guns’ in addition to paying all those high salaries. And for what? HR has no written procedures. PEBB administers our benefits and OUS negotiates labor agreements.

Yes, I am also curious to hear specifics about how humanities have suffered under Coltrane – especially given that he faces some serious constraints, given Bean’s decision to continue the subsidies to Law and Music at the expense of CAS.

As a senior professor in the humanities and former dept head, I can attest to Coltrane’s poor performance with respect to my own department. To some extent, his problem is that he just maintains the low priority CAS has always given to the humanities. Just look at how much money CAS, including Coltrane, have raised for the humanities–little to nothing. (We contrast unfavorably with Portland State in this regard.) Coltrane in particular seems eerily disengaged from what goes on in the humanities departments, and unconcerned that almost all of them perform poorly in the national rankings.

But the main point is that Coltrane should be evaluated in a systematic fashion, as U of O procedures require. This would allow him to explain what he thinks he has accomplished; and allow others to assess those claims.

Dog on Coltrane:

Not sure this one will make it by
the UOMatters Censor Board but will
give it a try.

To me, Coltrane’s only a bean counter – uninterested in matters of
academics, academic quality, and scholarship. This is to be expected – Coltrane’s predecessor was a bean
counter as well, he just counted the beans slightly differently.

In my entire time at the UO I have never seen any CAS dean actually exercise initiative in the name of Academic Integrity.

So, we get what we get. Why have
any other expectations at all …

Perhaps now the Ducks will really take you seriously, and become truly self-sufficient academically as well as commercially. they could outsource their academic assistance programs, saving UO the last $2 million in subsidy, and relieving the UO “academic side” of any responsibility or control in this, thereby making Jim Bean less happy and UO Matters more happy. Who knows, they might improve their graduation rates!

Population-wise the University is a town within a city and generally speaking, 60 – 70% of municipal budgets are expensed on policing. I wonder, does our “town” truly need to dedicate this degree of ongoing resources to staffing our own police department? This is a huge commitment, and there are other options. Funding a police force at this University will be like feeding a Grizzly in Yosemite: someone is going to get seriously hurt.

“The committee shall be the forum where the President and other Administration officials seek faculty advice on all important decisions that affect the university before they are implemented”

Confusing… if the FAC gives advice to the president and administration about financial issues then how is it things in that area are such a mess? It looks as though the President and the administration are going through the motions and doing what they want or the FAC members are just warming the chairs or maybe have no teeth to bite with. Whatever it may be the secret society isn’t working anymore the silence needs to be broken to bring the university back to being an institution for higher education instead of an institution for administration.

Dog, who must be a puppy, writes, “The FAC has never acted as a true Advisory committee – the FAC is simply used as a device to either vette or legitimize already made Prez/Provost decisions.” Dog is hereby advised that the FAC did, in the past, act as a truly advisory body to Prexy. Their job, as an elected committee, was to advise Prexy on all matters, but especially on matters that were recognized to be Faculty concerns. In no way did it act to legitimize Prexy’s policy decisions. Policy decisions were made by the Faculty, via its Assembly. A smart Prexy, who recognized the importance of process, could avoid an Assembly confrontation by resolving the problem as advised by the FAC. The problem recently has not been with the system, it has been with the abuse of the system by administrators who, like all autocrats, disdained the machinery of constitutional governance.

So I am thinking. Why is it that the UO is demanding change. I can’t find any other university in the state demanding the same things that the UO wants. All other institutions of higher education seem to be happy with the way things work…so why is the UO going the other way? Wait….institution of higher education…the UO is an institution of administration…the higher education part is fouling things up for them…I got it.

Sundt is right about the lack of evidence that the Ducks athletic succes is helping UO academically. It’s possible that it’s true, but I’d have to see real evidence. Is our enrollment increasing faster than other campuses? Are SAT scores of incoming students increasing? I would like to think so — we lag behind comparable state universities by a considerable margin that respect — but I don’t know. Does anybody else know?

To the yappy puppy: don’t you know there’s a horrendous recession going on, with a 20% state budget deficit? And you want a cost of living raise (when the cost of living index is essentially flat!) That would be utter poison for relations of UO with the state — the same UO that is pushing the “New Partnership.” And no, this has nothing to do with the new arena, Elton John, the BCS, or any of your other whining obsessions. I know, UO can afford to give you a raise — but see how that goes down when they have to jack up tuition the NEXT time.

And get this: if you’re Tier 1 — I get the feeling you’re a puppy who’s been around that long — the contribution to your pension is going to go up by about 6% of your salary in the new biennium. Yup, it’s like you’re getting a 6% raise already! On top of your already munificent pension benefits. That’s one reason the state budget is such a shambles. And believe me, a lot of people out there deeply resent you for it. (My sincere apologies if you’re one of the newer Tier X people where X – 3 or 4 or 5 or whatever edition they’re up to. And let it be noted that the newer Tier X people don’t have such a sweet deal. On the other hand, they have higher salaries, relatively, than the Tier 1 people)

To not dog: did you even try to understand the point I made about PERS and the effective 6% raise for Tier 1 employees? If you’re a perfesser at UO, they must have some real doozies.

And as for UO being a “business”, that is true in many respects, but it’s also the case that it is still a state agency, and still dependent for something like $50 million a year in state support for its basic operating budget. Without that dough, UO is sunk.

Of course, UO could always ask for another big tuition hike on the in-state students to make up the $5o million. Maybe $3000 a year?

And see how that would go over if the state — which still owns and controls the place — sees UO handing out raises right now.

You know, at a number of places the states are cutting support and not allowing compensating tuition increases. With the result that departments are being eliminated. Ask the language professors at SUNY Albany how that feels, compared to a salary freeze.

You think it couldn’t happen at UO?

Anon

9% that is how much this cheap state funds its state college. Did you understand that? The tax payers and legislators of this state are more than happy to allow the UO to raise tuition rather than part with their beer money to fund education.

UOMatters, sincerity is the new irony.

Dog wonder if UOmatters allows dog comments on BCS Bowl.

Well here goes and its basically just
one observation.

If you give teams 37 days off the inevitable happens and it did.

1. The offense goes stale and both offenses did

2. The defense has way too much time of prepare for all offensive tendencies and that showed greatly in this game as well.

I don’t think there was a real winner. I would hope the BCS process would allow for a championship game to either be played earlier or to finally move to a 3-4 team playoff structure.

The last time the dog had 37 days off, he forgot he was just a dog.

Great site for new track and field stadium. I’m sure Phil Knight would be willing to pay us big bucks.

I sort of agree about all the obstruction – but if UO had played by the rules, ORI would have a new building by now.

I wonder who advised Lariviere he could sneak this through? Melinda Grier, or Randy Geller?

The commentator’s article about the UO Senate meeting is exactly what happened.

Facts (such as if public meetings have been held, etc) were treated as opinions and dismissed with a “you’re entitled to your opinion” kind of response.

If it wasn’t so bizarre and disturbing it would have been hilarious.

Parking…hmmm….call DPS and they point the caller to Athletics…UO has employees who qualify for public assistance, and now our lowest paid employees will pay an additional $10 to come to work. Nice. The SEIU and GTFF need to jump into this with both feet. $10 per event night is a hardship for anyone living outside an ivory tower.

ODE reporter Verbano describes Lariviere as “stoic” and “unsympathetic” in his dealings with the U of O senate. I assume that these are code words for “arrogant” and “dismissive”. The president says he is “not a lawyer”–as his reason for dismissing the legal issues involved. May God have mercy on our souls.

That would be Sir Elton John, professor.

Human Resources, like DPS reports to Frances. They know full well we have custodians working graveyard and that $10 on top of what they already pay to park hurts low wage employees.

Another fine example of departmental collaboration under the VPFA.

From Inside Higher Ed:

Thanks, But No Thanks
As state support dwindles for public colleges, more leaders are ready to sacrifice appropriations for greater autonomy. more at

http://insidehighered.us2.list-manage2.com/track/click?u=ed1d2ff123b6b83dd97022f88&id=ad101f8b10&e=1ec75690d2

Brian Leiter also mentions the Inside Higher Ed article and gives his take on Lariviere.

That is useful info, dawg.

Especially

http://www.ous.edu/dept/ir/reports/fb2010/S9_Budget_and_Facilities.pdf

on p. 112. It shows that the inflation adjusted (CPI) revenue for academics per student is essentially unchanged from 1989 – present.

That is really bad, because of course, costs have risen faster than the CPI; if you don’t believe me, consider your salary + benefits, not just salary.

Practically all other indices of private or government revenue per person — per capita income; expenditures per K-12 student; expenditures per Oregon prison inmate, etc. etc. — have grown with the economy. Including, no doubt, revenues per student at universities outside Oregon.

So, Oregon is truly falling behind, over decades. It’s no wonder that OUS campuses have declining reputations. The decline is real.

Dog agrees mightily with UOmatters on this one.

To wit (assuming dog’s have wit):

From the long list of items presented by UOmatters, my view is that whenever there was an Opportunity for the UO Admin to correct perceptions or to clarify and make transparency – they have failed leaving, to me, merely a dog, the lingering impression that a) no one really knows what is going on and b)no one is willing to take responsibility to improve perception/transparency.

This creates the image of a totally disconnected University.

Actually, the dog suggests this exercise as a visual manifestation of the above.

Some morning when it is sunny, clear your mental image of the UO, get in your car (to increase your Carbon footprint) – drive in some way so as to come back so that you approach the University on Franklin from the east (for you mindful of sustainability you can get almost the same experience on the EMX) –
now with your uncleared mind look at the UO – its all glassy and shiny, brand new buildings –> what a veneer – I hope no one scratches the surface.

Pardon me. It should read, “…Mr. Van Vliet…”

If van Vliet were really looking out for the other campuses, he’d realize that the UO bond would set a long-term floor for all of them! And sure, they could go to a public/private endowment model — all they have to do is come up with donor(s) to match the public endowment, as UO apparently has.

As for the value of the campus — keep in mind that much, perhaps most of that has come from outside sources — not the State of Oregon.

If he thinks Phil Knight and other private donors are going to pay twice for the new arena, the law school, etc. etc. he must be smoking somethin’ up there is Corvallis.

It’s just pure envy!

But sure, the complete privatization idea would be a great one — really make the University of Oregon into a Stanford — I’m all for it!

In the end, I don’t think the state is going to walk away from $800 million in private money. They’re not that dumb. And look how easily they folded on the arena bonds!