Last updated on 10/15/2020
You’ve on the email list, and if not you can always google the predictable “Around the O” posts about our administration’s latest commitment to looking like they are doing something about diversity. Of course you won’t find any mention of the fact that all 5 of President Schill’s diversity cluster of excellence hires have now left UO.
But it’s not just the usual window dressing – it’s a money-making opportunity for outside consultants. There’s a certain logic to this for anyone who has watched the many expensive failures from our VP for Equity and Inclusion’s bloated office. Now they can just supervise consultants! How I.D.E.A.L. ™.
So let’s see what the free-market can provide. From the Business Opportunities website of our Purchasing and Contracts Office. “Opportunity closes on: February 1, 2021 5PM”:
I’m curious, does anyone have any ideas about why the diversity cluster people left?
Was the sanctimony level at UO too high?
I’ve also heard that being a token in UO and Eugene is very stressful.
The story I’ve heard is that they did not feel they were getting the research/grad student support they’d been promised, and then got better offers from other universities. But I’ll try and ask the Provost the next time he comes to the Senate.
wait, what? You mean that we hired these people simply for PR and to check off a list and then failed to give them adequate support
for success. I guess there were just not excellent to being with …
Maybe it would be better just to hire them because they are good as academics or deans or whatever. As musicians or scientists or business teachers. Not as tokens or ideologues or for cheap virtue signalling. No diversity clustering.
Everyone might feel happier, and things might work out better.
Is there some sort of reason we need to outsource this instead of, oh I dunno, having our VP of DEI actually do something that might actually make a difference at UO?
That would be like having our Chief Civil Rights Officer do something to improve civil rights on campus. These jobs are about protecting the administration, not about making the university better.