When the UO Board of Trustees took over from the OUS in 2014, UO faculty were on average paid 92.4% of pay at our AAU public university comparators. As of 2021 UO pay had fallen to 84.1%, and it is now declining not only in relative terms, but also in real dollars.
The public portion of the Trustees meeting starts at 9AM with public comments, and it will include a report from UO Economist Keaton Miller on this problem.
Video link here, official board agenda (which does not mention this dismal fact, much less propose a plan to address it) here.
Wasn’t there a program long ago, jointly of the administration and faculty, to bring faculty pay up to competitive AAU levels? That sure faded away without leaving a trace. UOM mentions 2014 as a higher level than today — as I recall, 2014 was near a peak in UO enrollment, in the wake of the Great Recession.
It seems to me it is going to be very hard to pay the faculty with coming enrollment challenges and state pressure to keep a lid on tuition.
As far as I can tell, the UO Board has been completely ineffectual, even oblivious to questions of institutional quality. It is not just faculty salaries (which of course are related to quality) — it’s also quality of the student body, accolades going to the faculty — when was the last time a UO faculty member got elected to the National Academy of Sciences? If I missed something, please inform me. The one big development has been the “Knight Campus” which doesn’t seem to be all that great a success. It’s not just that nobody cares, nobody even seems aware.
https://www.nasonline.org/member-directory/
2542766
Alice Barkan
Member (elected 2020)
University of Oregon
Primary: 62, Plant, Soil, and Microbial Sciences
Secondary: 25, Plant Biology
2537414
Chris Q. Doe
Member (elected 2017)
University of Oregon
Primary: 22, Cellular and Developmental Biology
Secondary: 28, Systems Neuroscience
20054292
Charles B. Kimmel
Member (elected 2022)
University of Oregon
Primary: 22, Cellular and Developmental Biology
Secondary: 27, Evolutionary Biology
Matthews_Brian.jpg
Brian W. Matthews
Member (elected 1986)
University of Oregon
Primary: 29, Biophysics and Computational Biology
Secondary: 21, Biochemistry
51547
Michael I. Posner
Member (elected 1981)
University of Oregon
Primary: 52, Psychological and Cognitive Sciences
Secondary: 28, Systems Neuroscience
2538536
Eric U. Selker
Member (elected 2012)
University of Oregon
Primary: 26, Genetics
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Paul Slovic
Member (elected 2016)
University of Oregon
Primary: 52, Psychological and Cognitive Sciences
Secondary: 64, Human Environmental Sciences
Franklin W. Stahl
Emeritus (elected 1976)
University of Oregon
Primary: 26, Genetics
Peter H. von Hippel
Member (elected 1978)
University of Oregon
Primary: 21, Biochemistry
Secondary: 29, Biophysics and Computational Biology
3495
David J. Wineland
Member (elected 1992)
University of Oregon
Primary: 13, Physics
It looks like there are 4 recent ones that I was not aware of. Thanks for the info! I wish that this information was more highly publicized. And also, David Wineland is also a Nobel prize winner in physics. This is the “branding” that UO should be pusing!
Biology faculty member David McCormick is a member of the National Academy of Medicine (NAM,2015), [ the rebadged NAS- Institute of Medicine].
UO has a long history of world class excellence in Neuroscience (as well as developmental biology, molecular biology), so its not surprising it could attract a scholar like McCormick.
There is no secret sauce to building a world class faculty….if that is what you want.
The latest NEW school to become a member of AAU is the University of Utah, and their School of Biological Sciences is light years ahead; their 40+ faculty members includes 7 members of NAS, and 1 noble prize winner [ who did the prize winning work at UU] . About the same # are members of AAA&S. One of their faculty, Toto Olivera, is a world renowned biochemist & neurobiologist, a member of NAS, NAM, American Philosophical Society, and AAA&S; Heck his home country , the Philippines, just issued a postal stamp with his face…under their program to celebrate living legends. And he also did the work at UU.
And from 2018-2021, 3 UO faculty have been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences :
Alice Barkan, Judith Eisen , Karen Guillemin.
4 more were elected in 2014-2015. Slovic, McCormick, Rothbart, Doe
Given that the American Academy of Arts and Sciences was founded by John Adams, one of my ancestors, I feel obligated to report that the once prestigious organization has declined into a irrelevant who’s who of aging business donors and retired university administrators (e.g. Phil Knight, Bob Berdahl) sponsoring a variety of pompous and ineffectual programs. While the Berlowitz scandal has apparently faded from memory (and been erased from their website) I think the real academics are there just to provide a veneer of credibility.
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Perhaps you are confusing it with the American Association for the Advancement of Science, which is the real deal.
I was aware that you once wrote a blog post on the ‘scandal’ at the AAA&S. Your post then was quite over the top, much too negative & critical, and it seems to me this comment is too. Just ask Geri Richmond, who until quite recently played many leadership roles at AAA&S, including being head of the membership committee. I suggest folks check it out for their selves.
No, I am not confusing it with AAAS, although Geri was a leader there too [ President, in fact].
It was a *scandal*, not a ‘scandal’. Their President lied about having a PhD, among other issues and their board tried to cover it up. They spent millions on her buy out, lawyers, etc. The Boston Globe stories about it are now paywalled, but this WaPo report lays out the gist. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/leslie-berlowitz-and-questions-at-the-american-academy-of-arts-and-sciences/2013/06/13/2a09551a-d1fc-11e2-8cbe-1bcbee06f8f8_story.html
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I’m sure it’s clean now, but from what little of substance I see on their website this quote from the WaPo still seems on target: “It’s known as a club where the highly credentialed celebrate themselves.”
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A tax deductible club, of course.
They do have a very nice headquarters building.
For the record it was the external equity pay raise(compared to AAU) in CAS initiated largely by M. Nicols , and consisted of 3 phases of pay raises.
Phase 1 occurred in May 2011 ; subsequent phases did not occur as the union formed and this program was terminated.
Under phase 1-all full profs in my dept. got a 6.9% pay raise
The program I am thinking of was about 10 years earlier, as I recall. But you are right about 2011 as well. I think that was kind of the last gasp of the pay advancement movement. It’s ironic, to say the least, that with unionization, UO has apparently slipped back.
The admins could have helped on this. They could have used the union negotiations as a chance or excuse to leverage larger raises to bring salaries up to par to focus on the long term dare I say “excellence of the university”. Instead they’ve focused on cost minimization and the union has largely focused on career advancement and stability of NTTF (which is good and overdue) while just paying lip service to the total amount of compensation its bargaining unit members get.
Not surprisingly, faculty at other AAU schools have not followed us down the path of unionization. This is the union’s last chance to make due on decade’s worth of promises….and Scholz’s chance to show he care’s about recruiting and retaining top notch researchers.
The union has largely failed tenure track faculty since 2014. I hope that much is becoming clear to all of them.
If they fail again right now (when the university is in its best position financially since 2014) I’m turning in my card.
Geri Richmond (2011)
Currently on leave as Under Secretary for Science and Education at the Department of Energy.
[UOM: editorialization deleted on the grounds that I can.]
Professor Miller’s presentation was not bad for an economist, but the most impressive part of the meeting was the many concrete instructions the graduate students gave to the Trustees about how they could solve the problems of the Middle East.
I liked the part where he told the Trustees that the salaries they are paying us put UO dead last in the Big 10. Gives them something to talk about in the Fiesta Bowl skybox.
huh!!?? Please say more!
The students have a plan for the Mideast? They are going to fight Hamas? Or maybe the IDF? Go Ducks!