Author Archives: uomatters

GC Kevin Reed hires outside lawyers to sue Homeland Security

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The docket and complaint are here, courtesy of the Free Law Project. I’m no law professor but much of this seems to be cribbed from the Harvard and MIT complaint filed last week, here. Presumably Ted Olson – a founding member of the Federalist Society – and his firm are giving us a discount:

Email from Pres Schill:

Dear University of Oregon community,

I am writing to let you know that the University of Oregon is taking a lead role in working to protect international students and to block the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement from revoking visas for international students whose studies may be entirely online this fall.

Today, the UO joined with 20 research institutions, liberal arts colleges, and public universities in the West in filing a lawsuit in Eugene’s U.S. District Court that seeks a temporary restraining order against the proposed regulations. The UO is the lead plaintiff, joining Oregon State University, the University of Southern California, Stanford University, and other West Coast universities in seeking a halt to this cruel, unfair, and misguided proposal.
This federal regulation targets one population for sudden exclusion if a university makes decisions for safety to move instruction online. It has no sound justification in health or educational policy. It will cause devastating disruption to the educational and research experience of the UO’s international students already in the United States, as well as those looking to come to our campus.
International students are a vital and valued part of our educational and research mission. I hope the courts will move quickly to block this arbitrary action and provide more certainty to our students who face disruption, financial harm, and stress.
Sincerely,
Michael H. Schill
President and Professor of Law

Around the O press release:

The University of Oregon is the lead plaintiff in a coalition of 20 of the top institutions in the West in a suit asking the federal courts to prevent the government from revoking visas of international students whose studies will be entirely online in the fall.

The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Eugene on Monday, July 13, seeks a temporary restraining order against the proposed rule issued on July 6 by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, part of the Department of Homeland Security. The nationwide rule would subject students studying in the U.S. on educational visas to deportation should their studies pivot to remote-based instruction as a public health protection measure during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The suit challenges the federal agency’s action as arbitrary and capricious, alleging it was issued without even the most minimal attempt to address its consequences to hundreds of thousands of students and the thousands of colleges and universities that educate them.

The coalition joins Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of California system and Johns Hopkins University, which have also filed litigation to block the action. The coalition in University of Oregon v. Department of Homeland Security is represented by Gibson Dunn, and Crutcher, the legal team that successfully defended the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program before the United States Supreme Court in a decision issued last month.

UO President Michael H. Schill said he hopes the courts will move quickly to block the action and provide more certainty to international students who face disruption, financial harm and incredible stress.

“This new guidance is cruel, unfair and misguided,” Schill said. “It targets one population for sudden exclusion if a university makes decisions for safety to move instruction online. It has no sound justification in health or educational policy. Unless blocked by the courts, it will cause devastating disruption to the educational and research experience of University of Oregon international students already in the United States, as well as those looking to come to the UO.”

The Trump administration announced the new guidance earlier this month in a reversal of previous temporary guidance that has allowed international students’ education to not be disrupted by online education during the pandemic. The new rules would force international students to return to their home countries within 15 days if they are enrolled solely in classes taught online.

“The government’s reckless and arbitrary action not only harms these students, but also robs institutions of higher education of the autonomy and flexibility to adapt models of instruction to meet the urgent needs posed by a global pandemic,” members of the coalition said in a written statement.

In the suit, UO Dean and Vice Provost for Global Engagement Dennis Galvan provided a declaration outlining how the “significant, immediate, and irreparable negative impacts on University of Oregon students and the University of Oregon as an institution” would suffer if the government adopts the ICE rules.

Galvan said he has already heard from many international students experiencing extraordinary stress. That comes on top of the shared pressure of the pandemic and global efforts to grapple, again, with racial justice.

“International students are vital to our success in research, teaching, and building diverse and inclusive communities,” Galvan wrote. “Whether they are studying in-person or remotely, international students provide a significant source of diversity to our community and global connections that are valuable to everyone. We are pursuing this case because all international students studying in this country deserve the right to continue their education without risk of deportation.”

The UO had 1,871 international undergraduate and graduate students at the institution last year. International students also make up a portion of graduate students who also contribute to teaching and research at the university.

The Graduate Teaching Fellows Federation spoke out against the guidance and urged the UO to support international students. In a statement, GTFF local 3544 said it welcomes the role the UO is taking.

“This change to SEVP is fueled by xenophobia and anti-immigrant sentiment with complete disregard for the sacrifices many international students make to study in the U.S.,” the statement said. “International students make irreplaceable contributions to UO’s academic community through their participation in classroom discussions, their original and groundbreaking research and publications, and their work in the classroom as instructors. Our community is enriched by their presence every day.”

Since the federal government announced the intent to create new ICE rules, the UO has been working with the Oregon congressional delegation and national associations of higher education to reverse the ICE guidance. To date, five of Oregon’s seven members of Congress have signed letters to Homeland Security asking that the guidance be reversed.

The UO also has joined with other institutions of higher education in asking congressional leaders to codify the flexibility granted in March if government does not withdraw its guidance.

The universities in the coalition are the University of Southern California, University of Oregon, Oregon State University, Arizona State University, California Institute of Technology, Chapman University, Claremont McKenna College, Northern Arizona University, Pitzer College, Pomona College, Santa Clara University, Scripps College, Seattle University, Stanford University, St. Mary’s College of California, University of Arizona, University of the Pacific, University of San Diego, University of San Francisco and University of Utah.

—By Jennifer Winters, University Communications

Faculty Union bargaining update – next session this Tu 9AM til ?

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From https://mailchi.mp/uauoregon/summer-bargaining-so-far?e=b103ce406c, all posted below:

United Academics and the administration reconvened last week to discuss potential salary cuts, the restoration of fall FTE for affected Career faculty, and a plan for expectation of continuing employment for all Career faculty.

The bargaining conversations have begun with each side presenting and discussing the principles that inform their thinking on the issues we’re bargaining. Our primary goals are to restore FTE for those who were renewed with low FTE in the spring and to institute an expectation of continued employment that would eliminate the administration’s ability to dramatically change career faculty FTE year to year. We have also been working to establish a fair threshold for a salary cut plan. While we agree with the administration that a salary cut might be a necessary part of addressing a major budget crisis, we maintain that employee wage cuts cannot be the only means of addressing difficulties.

We have made some progress on how to address both the expectation of continued employment and wage cuts. Both parties agree that FTE should be restored, although there is a remaining disagreement about whether all FTE be restored or whether the administration can still renew with lower FTE if cuts were planned “pre-COVID.” In addition, we have agreed that Career faculty who opted to pull their promotion case because of the threat of a lower FTE contract can choose to reinitiate the promotion process and have their promotion review finalized this summer.

Pay Cuts

United Academics recognizes that the university may not be in a position to meet all of its financial obligations due to changes in enrollment and state appropriations caused by COVID. We have agreed that in order for the university to continue to meet its instructional and research missions it may be necessary for faculty to take temporary pay cuts.

Still, questions remain: What is the scale of those cuts? How will any savings be used? What are the triggers for cuts? How are those cuts distributed across the university?

Both teams have been working toward answers to these questions, but our basic principle has been that the administration must look to use other resources before they ask employees for wage cuts. They have generally agreed with this principle, proposing that the administration be responsible for any deficit up to $10M and for all deficits over $35M, meaning that employees would need to take wage cuts to account for the remaining $25M. Of that $25M, the administration has tentatively estimated that cuts to bargaining unit faculty salaries would amount to $7.8M.

We have suggested that faculty would be more comfortable with a higher threshold, arguing that the savings the administration has derived through the hiring freeze, the salary freeze, and savings on travel will amount to more than $10M. We have suggested that a threshold of $25M and a cap of $50M seems more fair.

One of the main challenges in the conversation is the uncertainty we all face. It is very difficult to predict how deep the deficits we face will be. We have agreed that employee salary cuts will be used to cover deficits caused by tuition revenue decline this year and cuts to the state subsidy next year. Both sides seem to agree a two-year wage cut package is appropriate, but neither of us has a very good idea of how deep the cuts will go. Obviously, the administration would like a lower threshold before faculty salary cuts are triggered, hoping for smaller deficits that don’t reach the cap. We also hope for small deficits, wanting the threshold to be higher, hoping not to reach it at all.

When we do have an agreement on the triggers for the salary cuts and how much they might be, United Academics will have a progressive pay cut plan for the amount we will be facing developed by our Economics Team (E-Team). Although we have just begun discussing what kind of plan might be appropriate, we have agreed to work together to come up with a final model. We plan to share our E-Team’s model broadly. Suffice it to say it is a very standard “tax” plan with marginal tax rates that increase with income. It has been crafted to be progressive, to exempt as many lower-wage faculty as possible, and to minimize discontinuities in contributions (so that similar salaries are affected similarly).

Continuing Employment for Career Faculty

United Academics believes that the administration should abide by the collective bargaining agreement and that the 3-year contracts earned by promoted Career faculty should be real contracts that represent a commitment to those faculty. The administration, on the other hand, believes that it is proper to provide Career faculty with a contract where they guarantee full-time work for one year and then only 0.1 FTE in subsequent years. In most cases, the work in the out-years of a 3-year contract will still exist, and these contracts represent an administrator’s desire to feel better looking at future budget projections, as opposed to an assessment of the actual needs of the institution.

Our goal in negotiating expectation of continuing employment is to stop the administration from using Career faculty who happen to be up for renewal as flexibility to deal with temporary fluctuations in either enrollment or money, and thus to stop the administration from punishing faculty for their inability to plan for future enrollment needs or accumulate sufficient reserves.

Our current proposal is a system by which Career faculty cannot have their FTE reduced by more than 0.1 FTE in a given year, and in such a situation that FTE would be restored for the next academic year. Faculty could still be terminated for performance reasons or for academic or programmatic changes, but they could not have their FTE reduced slowly until they were out of a career. In the event of academic or programmatic reorganization that might eliminate the need for a position, we propose a committee that can verify the rationale for those possible position cuts.

The other part of this proposal would be a force majeure clause which would allow the university more flexibility in the event of a declared emergency. We are working through the details of what sorts of additional leeway they should have in such cases and what mechanisms will be put in place to keep such a system from being abused. Stay tuned for more information on this front!

Come to Bargaining

While we are making progress, we are still far apart on some issues. The more faculty are logging into our Zoom sessions, listening in, and providing feedback to our team, the stronger our position. Your participation shows the administration that the faculty are paying attention and sweeping changes will not come easily. Not for nothing, it buoys the Bargaining Team to see high numbers of participants in our Zoom session! Some faculty who have been attending the sessions report that it is the best time they have had in their lives. Others have lived more adventurous lives, but still report the conversations to be fascinating. Everyone agrees that you can have the conversation on in the background while you get other work done.

Bargaining sessions typically run several hours, so please feel free to “attend” for as little or as much as your schedule allows. You can register here, and will then receive a Zoom link via email. Please note that while all sessions are listed as a default 9am-5pm, the actual meeting times will vary – we’ll keep the UA bargaining page updated with that schedule.

PAC-12’s Larry Scott submits Orwell Prize application

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Ken Goe has his entry in the Oregonian:

“The health and safety of our student-athletes and all those connected to Pac-12 sports continues to be our No. 1 priority,” Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott said in a statement released by the conference. “Our decisions have and will be guided by science and data, and based upon the trends and indicators over the past days, it has become clear that we need to provide ourselves with maximum flexibility to schedule, and to delay any movement to the next phase of return-to-play activities.”

University pays professor $504K to leave

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Universities do that for coaches all the time. For example, over the past 5 years UO has paid former coaches $13.5M. Universities also do it to get rid of bad presidents – e.g. the $940K we paid Gottfredson to go away. But this time a university bought out a tenured professor – and that’s unusual enough make it into InsideHigherEd news:

… [UNC-W chancellor Sartarelli], in a note to the campus, said he had three choices. “1) Have him continue as a faculty member and accept the ongoing disruption to our educational mission, the hurt and anger in the UNCW community, and the damage to the institution. 2) Attempt to terminate him, and face drawn out, very costly litigation, that we might not win, which was the case when Dr. Adams sued UNCW and won a First Amendment retaliation lawsuit in 2014. That legal process lasted 7 years and cost the university roughly $700,000, $615,000 of which was for Dr. Adams’ attorneys’ fees. Losing a similar lawsuit today could cost even more. 3) Negotiate a settlement when, as part of a conversation with me about his conduct and future at UNCW, I learned Dr. Adams was interested in retiring. This approach allows us to resolve the situation quickly, with certainty, and in the most fiscally responsible way. This is the best option for our university and our community.”

3:00 p.m. Finance and Facilities Committee

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[reposted because of reserve and media contract stuff]

3:00 p.m. Finance and Facilities Committee https://trustees.uoregon.edu/sites/trustees2.uoregon.edu/files/meeting_packet_-_ffc_final_12.3.18.pdf

1. Audited Financial Statements: Jamie Moffitt, Vice President for Finance and Administration and CFO; Kelly Wolf, Associate Vice President and Controller; Scott Simpson, Partner, Moss Adams

Here’s one metric where UO is not at the bottom of the AAU – reserves:

2. Quarterly Financial Reports and Annual Treasury Report: Jamie Moffitt, Vice President for Finance and Administration and CFO; Karen Levear, Director, Treasury Operations

All these business people on the board, and the only trustee who found the error in the report is the UO staff trustee, Jimmy Murray, a librarian. Controller Kelly Wolf thanks him.

As usual these reports do not include any information on the athletics budget, or the various tax changes affecting it, or their subsidies, or their debt obligations. This is despite the fact that in the past trustees have specifically asked to see this.

Continue reading →

Pac-12 meets Friday under Pres Schill to consider postponing football

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Rumor down at the faculty club is that the PAC-12 board, which is chaired by President Schill as of July 1, will meet this Friday to discuss what to do about football. The Ivy League has already postponed or maybe cancelled it, that news is here.

Meanwhile USA Today reports that Learfield IMG College, the multimedia conglomerate that controls the marketing and sponsorship rights for the Ducks and many other universities has started delaying payments, and is threatening to activating force majeure clauses if the universities don’t renegotiate their contracts.  UO’s contract with IMG, first negotiated by GC Kevin Reed in 2016, has such a clause.

And, since there’s an MOU between the Ducks and the Academic side sharing these revenues, this could cost us all:

Screen Shot 2016-06-03 at 9.36.18 PM

University to cut 11 subsidized sports due to budget crisis

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That would be Stanford University – thanks to several readers for the forward.

Sacrifices must be made. Except by the golfers, I can’t help but notice:

Stanford University logo
JULY 8, 2020

An Open Letter to the Stanford Community and the Stanford Athletics Family

Marc Tessier-Lavigne, President
Persis Drell, Provost
Bernard Muir, Director of Athletics

One of Stanford’s great sources of pride is our intercollegiate athletics program. Over the course of our storied history, through innumerable days of challenge, triumph, and joy, our student-athletes have set the standard for exceptional achievement in both academics and athletics. Cheering on the Cardinal is an integral part of life at Stanford, and the commitment and dedication of our student-athletes serve as an inspiration for fans and followers well beyond The Farm.

As you may know, Stanford currently offers more varsity sports than nearly every other Division I university in the nation. Our goal is to provide excellent support and a world-class experience for our student-athletes in the sports that we offer. Over time, however, providing 36 varsity teams with the level of support that they deserve has become a serious and growing financial challenge.

We now face the reality that significant change is needed to create fiscal stability for Stanford Athletics, and to provide the support we believe is essential for our student-athletes to excel.

In that context, we are writing today with some extremely difficult news. In consultation with the Board of Trustees, we have made the decision to reduce the breadth of our athletics programs and staffing. Stanford will discontinue 11 of our varsity sports programs at the conclusion of the 2020-21 academic year: men’s and women’s fencing, field hockey, lightweight rowing, men’s rowing, co-ed and women’s sailing, squash, synchronized swimming, men’s volleyball, and wrestling. All of these teams will have the opportunity to compete in their upcoming 2020-21 seasons, should the circumstances surrounding COVID-19 allow it, before they are discontinued at the varsity level. Regretfully, 20 of our support staff positions are being eliminated as part of this realignment.

This is heartbreaking news to share. These 11 programs consist of more than 240 incredible student-athletes and 22 dedicated coaches. They were built by more than 4,000 alumni whose contributions led to 20 national championships, 27 Olympic medals, and an untold number of academic and professional achievements. Each of the individuals associated with these programs will forever have a place in Stanford’s history.

We will do everything we can to support the student-athletes, coaches, and support staff members affected by this decision. We will honor all existing athletics scholarship commitments to the student-athletes throughout their undergraduate experiences at Stanford, and we hope they choose to remain on The Farm and earn their Stanford degrees. Should any student choose to continue their collegiate athletics career elsewhere, however, we will support them in every way possible. The contracts of affected coaches will be honored, and any support staff whose employment is ending will be provided with severance pay. All of the affected sports will have the opportunity to transition to club status after they conclude their 2020-21 varsity season.

We understand that the timing of this announcement, in early summer and against a backdrop of uncertainty and change across our country, is certainly far from ideal, as is the method by which we had to deliver the news to our student-athletes and coaches today, via Zoom. However, we felt it was imperative to confront the financial challenge before it worsened, to undertake a deliberate and collaborative decision-making process with our Board of Trustees and campus leadership, and to exhaust all alternatives before making profound changes in our programs, especially during this difficult time. That process has recently come to a conclusion, and we wanted to share the news as quickly as possible in order to provide our student-athletes and staff with as much flexibility and choice as possible. Given the timing, we determined that offering these 11 programs the opportunity for one final season of varsity competition in 2020-21 was the right thing to do.

Below, we would like to provide more information about the financial challenge behind this decision, how the 11 sports were chosen, and what the future holds for varsity athletics at Stanford.

Financial sustainability & competitive excellence

•
The financial model supporting 36 varsity sports is not sustainable. The average Division I athletics program sponsors 18 varsity sports. In fact, only one university at the Division I FBS level sponsored more varsity sports than Stanford prior to this change, and that institution does so with a significantly larger budget. Many of our peers at the Power Five level are supported by budgets that are much larger than ours while operating far fewer sports. Stanford’s more than 850 varsity student-athletes today represent 12% of our undergraduate population, a far higher percentage than exists at nearly all of our peer institutions.
•
Due to the escalating costs of operating such a large athletics department, a structural deficit emerged several years prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. That deficit was projected to exceed $12 million in FY21 and to grow steadily in the years ahead. The COVID-19 pandemic and associated recession have only exacerbated the gap; before these sport reductions, our revised forecasts indicated a best-case scenario of a $25 million deficit in FY21, factoring in the effects of COVID-19, and a cumulative shortfall of nearly $70 million over the next three years. These projected deficits could become much greater if the 2020-21 sports seasons are suspended or altered due to COVID-19.
•
We have investigated a wide variety of alternatives – ticket sales, broadcast revenue, university funding, philanthropic support, operating budget reductions, and many others – and found them insufficient to meet the magnitude of the financial challenge before us. While Stanford may be perceived to have limitless resources, the truth is that we do not. In general, Athletics has been a self-sustaining entity on our campus, and we are striving to preserve that model in a time when budgetary support for our academic mission is already under significant stress. Academic and administrative units across the university already have been planning budget cuts of up to 10% in response to the university’s constrained resources as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The vast majority of Stanford’s endowment is directed toward specific long-term uses, including need-based financial aid for students, and is not available to backfill an ongoing structural budget deficit in a specific department. In addition, while Stanford Athletics benefits from a robust community of generous supporters, their philanthropy simply could not cover the escalating costs of ensuring excellence across the board in our 36-sport model. stay connected.
•
Over the past several months, Stanford Athletics has undertaken significant cost-saving measures. Our entire Athletics executive team and a number of our head coaches, including our head football and basketball coaches, have taken voluntary pay reductions. We are reducing sport and administrative operating budgets to the greatest extent possible, including altering our competition schedules and travel plans for the upcoming academic year. Additionally, the support staff layoffs announced today represent a 10% reduction in our Athletics workforce. Even implementing all of these measures, however, we will need to access our limited reserve funds to bridge us through the current economic downturn and the acute near-term impacts the pandemic will have on our revenue sources.
•
We have calculated that the total incremental funding needed to permanently sustain these 11 sports at a nationally competitive varsity level exceeds $200 million. There are other significant fundraising priorities across the university and within Athletics. In fact, even after recognizing the full expense savings resulting from this decision, closing the remaining Athletics structural deficit and ensuring the continued success of our remaining 25 varsity sports will itself require garnering resources that exceed that amount, and we are fully committed to that endeavor.

The primary alternative to this decision would have been a broad and deep reduction in support for all 36 of our varsity sports, including the elimination of scholarships and the erosion of our efforts to attract and retain the high-caliber coaches and staff needed to provide an unparalleled scholar-athletics experience. After considering the effects of this model, we determined that operating our varsity athletics programs in this manner would be antithetical to Stanford’s values and our determination to be excellent in all that we do.

While painful, the discontinuation of these 11 sports at the varsity level and the associated reductions in our support staff will create a path for Stanford Athletics to return to fiscal stability while maintaining gender equity and competitiveness. It will ultimately enhance the experience of the remaining student-athletes and increase their likelihood of competing for national championships for years to come. We remain steadfastly committed to excellence in varsity athletics and, in fact, Stanford will continue to maintain one of the highest student-athlete to undergraduate student body ratios in the nation, with nearly 9% of the undergraduate student body continuing to participate in varsity athletics beyond the 2020-21 academic year.

Why these 11 sports?

These 11 sports were decided upon after a comprehensive evaluation of all of our sports across a broad set of criteria and considerations, including, but not limited to:

•
Sponsorship of the sport at the NCAA Division I level
•
National youth and postgraduate participation in the sport
•
Local and national fan interest in the sport stay connected.
•
Potential expense savings from the elimination of the sport
•
Incremental investments required to keep or put the sport in a position to achieve competitive excellence on the national level
•
History of the sport at Stanford
•
Prospects for future success of the sport at Stanford
•
Impact on gender equity and Title IX compliance
•
Impact on the diversity of our student-athlete population
•
Impact on the student-athlete experience across all sports, now and in the future

For example, in simply looking at sponsorship of the sports at a national level as one consideration:

•
Of the 11 sports being discontinued, six (lightweight rowing, men’s rowing, co-ed and women’s sailing, squash, synchronized swimming) are not NCAA-sponsored championship sports.
•
All 11 sports being discontinued are sponsored by less than 22% of the more than 350 Division I institutions, and nine (men’s and women’s fencing, lightweight rowing, men’s rowing, co-ed and women’s sailing, squash, synchronized swimming, men’s volleyball) are sponsored by less than 9%.
•
There are only two other Division I field hockey programs on the West Coast, and there are no other fencing, lightweight rowing, sailing, squash, or synchronized swimming programs on the West Coast.

Many of these sports currently compete without a full complement of scholarships (e.g. wrestling), coaches, and resources. After careful analysis, we concluded there was no realistic path to ensuring that they have all of the resources needed to compete at the highest level without hindering our ability to support our other 25 varsity sports.

All of the impacted sports will have the opportunity to compete at the club level after their upcoming varsity seasons are complete, assuming sufficient student interest, but will need to do so in a financially self-sustaining manner that ensures the safety and well-being of the participants. We will immediately begin working with the student-athletes, parents, alumni, and supporters of these sports to work toward providing robust opportunities for participation at the club level.

The future of Stanford Athletics

Today’s announcement brings the three of us great sadness, though we realize ours is nowhere near the level of pain and disappointment that our student-athletes, parents, alumni, and supporters of the impacted sports are experiencing.

We remain committed to a strong and vibrant varsity athletics program at Stanford, and we are confident that these changes will position Stanford Athletics, and our remaining 25 varsity programs, for sustained excellence and leadership in athletics, academics and education through sport. Our commitment to diversity and gender equity in athletics also remains firmly in place and is supported by this decision.

More information about the issues we have discussed here is available at https://alu.ms/athletics-faq. Thank you for reading, and for those of you who are part of the Stanford Athletics family, thank you for your steadfast dedication to the success and well-being of our student-athletes.

Pres Schill and Prov Phillips on Trump’s latest nastiness

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Dear University of Oregon community,

The federal government’s recent guidance forcing the immediate exit from the United States of international students enrolled entirely in online or remote classes is cruel, unfair, and misguided. This is a reversal of guidance issued at the onset of the pandemic that had created helpful flexibility for international students when universities rapidly adjusted curriculum delivery to respond to COVID-19.

We are all working to ensure safe instructional formats for all students. Yet this new guidance targets one population for sudden exclusion if a university makes decisions for safety to move instruction online. It has no sound justification in health or educational policy. It will cause devastating disruption to the educational and research experience of University of Oregon international students already in the United States, as well as those looking to come to the UO. This shameful announcement is already creating personal stress, uncertainty, and financial harm to members of our university community.

International students are a valued part of the UO, and important to our success as a world-class, global institution of higher education. We are committed to doing everything we can to support international students through this time of uncertainty and are working directly with affected students on how best to continue their education at the UO. We urge the administration to reverse this destructive guidance and instead provide flexibility, fairness, and clarity for international students. The UO is working actively with higher education associations and peer institutions to pursue all avenues to delay or overturn these unnecessarily harsh requirements for international students.

Sincerely,

Michael H. Schill, President and Professor of Law
Patrick Phillips, Provost and Senior Vice President (and Professor of Biology last I checked, though apparently he doesn’t need to keep reminding everyone of that.)

Changes in UO expenditure authorizations from 2014 to 2020 budgets

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Note: These data are from https://transparency.uoregon.edu/ They show authorized expenditures – not actual expenditures. For example, the Law School is authorised to spend $10.8M this year, they probably spent more that $18M.

I’ve sorted these by the $ change from 2013-2014 to the 2019-2020 AY. Changes in accounting mean that direct comparisons should be done with care. My quick takeaway is that most of the units getting large increases are administrative units – not academic units.

Comments and interpretation welcome.

2014 2020
unit  Total Expenditure Budget Total Expenditure Budget2 % change $ change
400500 –  Budget and Finance Division $609,831 NA NA
410210-FASS Finance & Admn Shared Services $4,230,781 NA NA
410500 –  Campus Planning & Real Estate $1,523,420 NA NA
422111 –  VPSA Holden Center $590,395 NA NA
433300 –  Printing & Mailing Services $4,805,174 NA NA
440500 –  Affirmative Action $770,250 NA NA
460509 –  Parking and Transportation $1,961,731 NA NA
461000-Campus Services $19,066,396 NA NA
520200-University Communications $9,242,351 NA NA
900100-UO General / Budget Control $910,197 NA NA
910000-UO General Business Operations -$7,355,165 NA NA
912000-UO General Insurance $5,588,795 NA NA
913698-UO Building/Property Management $5,561,516 NA NA
430000 –  Business Affairs Office $5,962,728 $89,723,648 1405% $83,760,920
480000 –  Athletics $98,011,236 $139,080,843 42% $41,069,607
600000 –  Research $33,270,095 $65,152,481 96% $31,882,386
470000 –  University Housing $57,347,971 $86,978,680 52% $29,630,709
263000 –  Information Services $21,127,986 $44,556,899 111% $23,428,913
226000 –  Education, College of $32,825,094 $51,769,399 58% $18,944,305
450000 –  Campus Operations $45,666,314 $64,195,299 41% $18,528,985
262010 –  VP Student Affairs Administration $4,436,250 $20,270,005 357% $15,833,755
490000 –  University Health Center $18,680,905 $30,100,545 61% $11,419,640
225000 –  Business, College of $32,996,210 $44,336,069 34% $11,339,859
221000 –  Architecture & Allied Arts, School $21,365,273 $29,297,696 37% $7,932,423
262000 –  Enrollment Management $22,956,355 $30,704,252 34% $7,747,897
425000 –  Student Union, EMU $13,982,738 $20,026,783 43% $6,044,045
267000 –  Undergraduate Studies $5,817,332 $10,949,308 88% $5,131,976
229000 –  Music and Dance, School of $12,876,518 $16,694,166 30% $3,817,648
150001 –  Academic Extension $19,722,601 $23,397,158 19% $3,674,557
265000 –  Graduate School $2,644,944 $6,241,397 136% $3,596,453
410000 –  VP Fin & Admin Operations $3,219,494 $5,940,514 85% $2,721,020
410800 –  Enterprise Risk Services $2,897,358 $5,570,814 92% $2,673,456
440000 –  Human Resources $5,313,727 $7,700,330 45% $2,386,603
227000 –  Journalism & Communicatn, School of $23,811,816 $26,185,848 10% $2,374,032
460000 –  Police Department $5,684,545 $7,646,310 35% $1,961,765
224000 –  Honors College $4,354,598 $6,261,566 44% $1,906,968
100100 –  President Administrative Operations $3,544,927 $5,441,851 54% $1,896,924
266900 –  Physical Education and Recreation $10,683,956 $12,445,380 16% $1,761,424
120000 –  Senior VP and Provost Operations $7,660,326 $9,143,398 19% $1,483,072
264000 –  International Affairs $14,017,355 $15,412,721 10% $1,395,366
211000 –  VP for Equity & Inclusion $3,487,333 $4,851,098 39% $1,363,765
210325 –  UO Portland $4,494,486 $5,711,118 27% $1,216,632
267500 –  Counseling & Testing Center $4,333,012 $5,467,328 26% $1,134,316
432000 –  Purchasing & Contracting Services $1,212,868 $2,078,298 71% $865,430
410600 –  University Auditor $37,950 $759,515 1901% $721,565
102000 –  General Counsel $2,523,487 $3,128,404 24% $604,917
267600 –  Career Center $1,684,687 $2,241,144 33% $556,457
106000 –  UO Board of Trustees $172,912 $593,208 243% $420,296
410310 –  Institutional Research $616,030 $872,900 42% $256,870
212000 –  Vice Provost for Budget & Planning $1,137,671 $1,210,615 6% $72,944
420000 –  Budget and Resource Planning $908,143 $968,077 7% $59,934
250000 –  Library $28,032,268 $28,087,702 0% $55,434
200100 –  Academic Affairs $10,018,273 $7,048,971 -30% -$2,969,302
267900 –  Dean of Students & AVP Stdnt Affrs $8,771,136 $5,246,465 -40% -$3,524,671
222000 –  Arts & Sciences, College of $176,341,301 $169,805,544 -4% -$6,535,757
228000 –  Law, School of $19,621,847 $10,842,522 -45% -$8,779,325
500100 –  University Advancement $30,228,889 $20,004,888 -34% -$10,224,001
Grand Total $834,761,746 $1,181,386,029 42% $346,624,283

Bargaining IV, 7/7/2020

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Liveblog, usual disclaimer: my thoughts on what people are saying, trying to say, trying to be thinking, etc. Nothing is a quote unless in ” ” ‘s.

None of the usual chit-chat. Cecil sent in some written questions, Matella waited until just now to give him the answers. She claims that UO hasn’t really enacted any cost savings measure yet. Cecil calls caucus til 9:45. Union looks pissed. Matella promised two week a go to share Brad’s “models” – by which I think she meant spreadsheets. She hasn’t.

Meanwhile the Union’s discount branders have been busy:

They’re back. Sinclair: We’re trying to figure out how much money the university has or is likely to save and raise – before we get to faculty cuts.

Sinclair: Let’s cut to the chase. How much could we save by ditching Concur?

[UOM: Sorry, that’s it for live blogging today. I’ll have a recap tomorrow.]

University presidents make token cuts to bloated Pac-12

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The Pac-12 is run by the 12 university presidents/chancellors. John Canzano has the story here:

Scott relayed the bad news to the staff via an email obtained by The Oregonian/OregonLive. Scott wrote, “our CEO Group approved our conference budget for this coming year, which includes a 9 percent overall decrease in expenses along with salary reductions for employees making over $100,000 in annual salary.”

The salary reductions were effective immediately and will remain in effect for the next 12 months. Employees making six figures received pay reductions ranging from 5-10 percent. Scott, who makes $5.3 million, revealed in the email that he’d be taking a compensation reduction of 12 percent.

… I can’t blame the Pac-12 CEO Group for looking hard at the conference budget, seeing the cost of operations, and asking Scott to implement cost cuts. It’s a natural economic reaction. And it’s the same stuff being carried out on the Pac-12 university campuses. But what remains at the conference level are a series of vital questions.

Employees are left wondering why didn’t Scott assume an inspiring leadership stance and take a more significant pay reduction himself? It would have played well in all circles, internal and external.

Of course if Scott took a big cut then the university presidents would have to explain why they haven’t. Interesting that the Pac-12 cuts started at $100K. 2 months ago Pres Schill proposed pay cuts for faculty and OA’s that started at $30K – but he and the other university president’s weren’t willing to the same for the Pac-12, because it’s sports.