Steve Mims has a great piece in the RG on what Duck baseball recruits got by going pro. Gives you some idea of how much money the NCAA cartel is taking from the football players, who don’t have this option.
Posts published by “uomatters”
6/21/2014 update: The Arizona Republic has the story here. No word on how much Duck money was involved.
2/1/2013: No Policy Update: Duck administrators fly south for Felony Bowl
UO has no policy on free tickets or travel – not exactly “best practices” when it comes to claiming it’s exempt income, folks.
From: “Thornton, Lisa”
Subject: Public Records Request 2013-PRR-185Date: February 1, 2013 12:28:59 PM PST
02/01/2013
Dear [UO Matters]-
The University does not possess records responsive to your request for ” a copy of UO’s policies and/or procedures on paying for travel and tickets to away games and/or postseason games”, made 1/28/2013.
Thank you for contacting the office with your request.
Sincerely,
Lisa Thornton
Office of Public Records
1/28/2013: Ever wonder how the Ducks get our administrators to look the other way about the accounting tricks that leave the academic side holding the bag for millions in athletic department costs? Free junkets are part of it. The Fiesta Bowl has a long history of corruption, see here.
Whoops, this the NCAA. I meant bonuses for the coaches, $1.1M worth. Andy Greif has the story in the Oregonian. Oh yeah, Gottfredson’s redacted Special Assistant Lorraine Davis did pretty well too, topping off her $154K PERS payments:
6/20/2014 update: Gottfredson’s efforts to cover up his handling of the rape allegations bring more trouble to UO. The full Oregonian and RG petition, which is considerably more comprehensive than the NYT’s, is here: UO has pled for more time to respond, and the Times et al. have given them…
6/18/2014 update:
This worked out pretty well for Randy Geller with his random pot testing policy, so now Gottfredson’s Chief of Staff Greg Rikhoff has tried it. Sure enough, no one showed at the June 17th meeting. More info as it becomes available. The Administration’s policy website has nothing.
5/7/2014: UO administration to repeal all OUS OAR’s, adopt some as UO Policies
In times like these it would be very helpful to have a President who had the faculty’s trust. All this will be done with supervision by Randy Geller, who keeps his job until 7/1/2014 when this process must be complete.
It’s not just us, apparently it’s a national epidemic. Stephen Trachtenberg has a new book on them, Presidencies Derailed: Why University Leaders Fail and How to Prevent It. It only covers the 2009 derailments: 25 of them, more than Amtrak. What goes wrong? From the review by Jane Shaw of…
The people at the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education are dogged fighters for campus free speech rights. They’ve now given UO a “red-light warning” on its free speech policies, as explained here. While UO has a strong policy on freedom of speech, signed by President Lariviere and approved by…
Page views are up and I may have to move to a new server. Please post in the comments if you have been have trouble, or not, with slow load times – and what time of day you’ve had problems, if any. Thanks, UO M.
6/15/2014: Diane Dietz has the story in the RG, here. These days a university president’s main job is fundraising, and Gottfredson is not doing well at it. While OSU just wrapped up a $1B academic fund drive, the Duck Athletic Fund continues to use the UO Foundation to launder tax…
UO General Counsel Randy Geller has also been acting as the Interim Board Secretary and General Counsel for the Trustees. It’s a situation ripe for potential conflicts of interest. On the one hand Geller works as President Gottfredson’s attorney, who can fire him (or encourage him to resign, and write…
In the Oregonian, here. And a story about how colleges retaliate against faculty who speak out about rape, here. And a post from UO professor Jennifer Freyd on laws against such retaliation, here. My earlier post on the administration’s statements about Freyd is here. The RG story is here, with…
6/13/2014: [UO Matters: Because of the importance of this meeting to the UO community, I hired freelance reporter Dash Paulson to report on it. His summary is below, followed by a detailed report on what happened at the meeting. His summary is below, followed by a detailed report on what happened at the meeting. As usual, things in quotes are quotes, otherwise it’s the gist of the conversation. I have edited Mr. Paulson’s report a little, but have not made any substantive changes. Paulson’s report on the June 12 session is here.]
Summary:
As at yesterday’s meeting, the Trustees were fully engaged and asked many questions, including some tough and skeptical ones.
Randy Geller began by briefing the board on their ability to call closed executive sessions, the potential pitfalls of FERPA, and their basic powers to discuss records.
President Gottfredson made extended remarks, first addressing sexual assault and saying campus safety for students and was the top priority. “There are students on our campus who feel unsafe. Like you I believe that’s unacceptable. As I believe, as you believe, any instance of sexual assault, sexual harassment, sexual assault isn’t acceptable. Not even one…There is nothing more important for ourselves to concern ourselves with.” He concluded those remarks by saying “We’re going to lean into this as much as we can. This is a big, important problem for us.”
He went on to speak about the dramatic changes that have occurred at the University and how important it is for the University of Oregon to change its governance model, “On my own checklist of things to do, having this board checks the first box. And the first box is we have to do things differently at the University of Oregon.”
Provost Scott Coltrane spoke about the new Clusters of Excellence hires and the process that went into selecting the top ten areas for cluster hiring. “We have buy-in from the faculty on this. But you’ll see the final list is very heavy on the sciences and applied sciences.” The list highlights the ten areas that will be a top priority for hiring. “I’ve gotten a little feedback on this … last week I got letters from faculty about how social sciences and humanities weren’t included here, and of course as former dean of College of Arts and Sciences they were unhappy with me.
Coltrane will be working with those faculty whose proposals weren’t picked and “who are a little cranky right now.” [Editor: The faculty objections are about the process as much as the specific proposals that were funded. See post with Department Heads letter here.] Some nearly made the top ten, such as environmental humanities and Geospatial revolutions. “We’ll be funding some of those also” but not at the same level. Cluster funding doesn’t replace other hiring, just different. We can refigure and reshape [this process] in future years with your help.”
Finally there was a long explanation to the board on the current status of the capital campaign from Mike Andreasen, Vice President of Advancement.
At the end, President Gottfredson paid tribute to Sam Dotters-Katz, who will be graduating, and to Randy Geller, who will be retiring this year.
The details:
Convene 8:33
Lillis: Randy is going to give us some reminders on our responsibilities as Trustees.
6/13/2014 update: Senate President Kyr has posted the written version of his remarks to the board on the role of the Senate, faculty and staff service in shared governance, and the Delegation of Authority policy here. The main substantive issue the Senate has with the delegation of authority policy, as submitted by the administration and passed by the board, is that it gives President Gottfredson control over Senate committees. The disputed language is this:
3.4 Committees, Councils and Advisory Groups. The President of the University shall establish and
define the charge of any and all University committees, councils, and advisory groups, except as provided in Board action.
This is a serious challenge to faculty authority, at odds with AAUP recommendations, and will have to be revisited soon.
I will post the report from Dash Paulson on the day 2 of the Trustees meeting later today.
6/12/2014: [UO Matters: Because of the importance of this meeting to the UO community, I hired freelance reporter Dash Paulson to report on it. Mr. Paulson had written several excellent stories as an Emerald reporter, including the first substantive interview with President Gottfredson, in January 2013, here. His summary is below, followed by a detailed report on what happened at the meeting. As usual, things in quotes are quotes, otherwise it’s the gist of the conversation. I have edited Mr. Paulson’s report a little, but have not made any substantive changes. Dash will have another report from day two. The Trustees web page is here, bios here. Diane Dietz has a report in the RG here, and UO’s “Around the O” blog has the official slanted PR flack report online, if you care enough to search for it.]
Report on June 12 session:
Dash Paulson here, providing you a report on today’s meeting of the board of Trustees. Professor Bill Harbaugh asked me if I would be willing to do this job earlier in the week because he had to fly to a convention. I had to think about it. When I enrolled at UO, Richard Lariviere had just taken over as President. His firing two years later devastated his supporters, but for some people like me it opened a window into how this University actually works because I read UO Matters to see what the hell was going on. The blog was irreverent. It was interesting. It was biting and often unforgiving. I’ve grown to disagree with some of Bill’s intimations, but there’s no one else writing about this interior world with the same veracity and dedication as him.
UO Matters has mattered a lot in the affairs of this University over the last 6 years, and I think I can say Bill’s independence remains unquestioned. For those reasons I’m actually pretty stoked to be the first student contributor to this blog.
Report:
The Trustees today were engaged and eager to learn. Ann Curry is particularly vocal and has asked more questions than the rest of the Trustees combined. Chuck Lillis and Allyn Ford seem very conformable; the general feeling is that everyone is trying to learn quickly; everyone seems intent of being good at their new role. President Mike Gottfredson has repeatedly emphasized the board’s new authority and power and Randy Geller has told them they’re responsible for pretty much everything now. Chuck Lillis is a gracious and humorous chair for the board, but prepared to forge ahead with the business of the board. All committee proposals and policies were adopted, mostly unanimously.
One matter of concern was over the recent GTF strike vote. Three grad students spoke during the public comment section. The Trustees were not pleased they weren’t given forewarning of the potential for a strike. The Trustees in general seemed sympathetic to the GTFs and some of them stressed they want to be kept in the loop about GTFF issues and other labor bargaining.
Senate President Kyr spoke about the controversial Delegation of Authority Policy. In March the Trustees agreed, on urging of Kyr and John Bonine (Law), to get input from the faculty and the Senate before adopting this policy. The Senate committee made substantial changes. The administration accepted some of those, and rejected others, before sending a revised proposal to the Board for consideration. Today Kyr showed the remaining differences between the two documents, and asked the board to consider accepting more of the Senate’s language, and to set up a working group with the Senate to work out language regarding Senate control over its own committees and Board participation in labor negotiations.
The latter concern inspired an amendment, which was originally proposed by Kurt Wilcox, voted down, and then Dotters-Katz proposed different language which was adopted:
“Upon request by the chair of the board or a majority of the trustees the president will provide the board with requested information regarding personnel and employment matters, including labor relations and approval of collective bargaining agreements.”
With that language in place, and despite senate president Robert Kyr asking them to delay a vote, the board adopted the policy with the encouragement of Chuck Lillis and President Gottfredson who explained they could go back and change it anytime.
Call to Order (Chair) 8:35 a.m. the board has been called to order
Roll Call (General Counsel): Everyone is present except Professor Susan Gary
Chair Comments, Discussion of Meeting Agenda (Chair)
Chuck Lillis asks that everyone be ready to make swift progress this morning, “We also have the budget for 2015 and it requires action”
The story on today’s Trustees meeting, by UO strategic communicator Jennifer Winters, is here. UO Matters will have a more accurate story on what happened at the meeting soon.
for protecting their athletic brands, instead of protecting their students from sexual violence. Their excellent editorial here. Speaking of which, “Around the O” has a press release on the 160over90 PR firm’s branding efforts here. Meanwhile, still no news on when Gottfredson’s self-appointed “External Review Committee” will meet to investigate…