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Posts published by “UO Matters”

Retention offers are biased against women, minorities

Thanks to a reader for the link: In US higher education, faculty members may receive an outside offer of employment from an external organization, and then receive a corresponding counteroffer from their current institution. Counteroffers are written contracts made to individuals — either prematurely in anticipation of an outside offer,…

Fake Science for Sale

In economics one good paper a year is a respectable career and the review process can take many years. Apparently the physical sciences are more responsive to market pressures: https://www.wsj.com/science/academic-studies-research-paper-mills-journals-publishing-f5a3d4bc?st=sgc2yq1xhe54ij4&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink Fake studies have flooded the publishers of top scientific journals, leading to thousands of retractions and millions of dollars in…

Pres Scholz asks students to narc on faculty who try and use their academic freedom

Actually, he got VP Kris Winter to do his dirty work with this email to students:

… In short, no student should be encouraged or compelled by UO employees to be exposed to the protest or encampment. This includes visiting the encampment for any academic or instructional purpose including class or office hours. I encourage students to reach out to report concerns through the links in this message, to practice self-care and mutual support, and to make use of the following resources as we navigate this challenging time. …

As it happens, UO has a policy on academic freedom that addresses this, and does so far more liberally (in the classical sense) than what UO is telling its students:

b. TEACHING. The University’s responsibility to help students to think critically and independently requires that members of the university community have the right to investigate and discuss matters, including those that are controversial, inside and outside of class, without fear of institutional restraint. Matters brought up in class should be related to the subject of courses or otherwise be educationally relevant, as determined primarily by the faculty member in charge of the class.

The academic freedoms enumerated in this policy shall be exercised without fear of institutional reprisal.

Scholz’s message to students below:

Daily Emerald: Faculty pay is dismal, but Scholz & his top Admins doing just fine

Stephanie Hensley in the ODE: For professors at the University of Oregon, salaries are notably lower than those of their peers at other universities. The average annual salary of a full professor at the UO is $139,800, whereas the American Association of Universities averages $174,300. … Since joining the University…

Pres Scholz on Gaza protests, boycotts, divestment, free speech, disruptions

Dear University of Oregon community, We are living through an extraordinary moment in which people at universities across the nation—including on our own campus—are expressing their passionate views about the ongoing conflict and devastating loss of human life in the Middle East and particularly in Gaza. The destruction and suffering…

UO’s top administrators pay themselves 99.4% of comparators, pay the faculty 86%.

What I learned in bargaining today, on zoom at https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81254557403?pwd=Nkh2L1ptaDhpRmlvdWNaaXYxaHcxQT09 In response to this news from Keaton Miller (Econ) your union has lowered its salary demand from “Average, in 3 years” to “99.4% of average, in 3 years”. The new proposal will be posted at https://www.uauoregon.org/bargaining/ Presumably it will be…

Catalyzing new Provost will propel university forward, guided by new strategic plan

Dear University of Oregon community, I am thrilled to announce that Christopher P. Long, dean of the College of Arts & Letters and the Honors College at Michigan State University (MSU) and professor of philosophy and MSU Research Foundation Professor, will join the University of Oregon as provost and senior…

DEI’s message of springtime light & hope excludes atheists, pagans, and entire southern hemisphere

I’m no astronomer, but in my family’s “faith tradition” we were taught that this annual increase in light was caused not by hope, but by the tilt of the earth’s axis of rotation relative to its solar orbit – and also that springtime for us was a depressing advance of darkness for those in, say, Patagonia.
On Apr 5, 2024, at 12:32 PM, Yvette Alex-Assensoh <[email protected]> wrote:

Welcome to Spring Term 2024: A Time of Light and Hope

Ultimately, Springtime in Eugene is beautiful, but that beauty only emerges after months of a dreary sky and rain. The fact that beauty can and, often does, emerge from the rainy seasons of our lives is an encouragement, as people across our world experience wars, conflicts, unnecessary suffering as well as death at home and abroad.

This year, Springtime in Eugene is a time that diverse members of our community are celebrating Ramadan, Easter, and Passover. As members of a university community, we are called to life-long learning, which hopefully includes broadening our understanding of the diverse ways that people worship and connect to their collective memories and tradition. Our shared commitment to one another, therefore, invites us to support the time that our students, staff and faculty take to honor cherished beliefs and traditions.

Admin team to try and explain Pres Scholz’s real pay cut proposal to union Thursday at 12:30

Email from the UAUO Union:

United Academics is back at the bargaining table this week, Thursday April 4, from 12:30-3:30 in Chiles 125. Come out and support your bargaining team! The administration has promised to walk us through their lackluster salary proposal which fails to keep up with inflation, puts us farther behind our comparators, and excludes raises for many of the faculty in your bargaining unit.

Let’s pack the room again!

Your presence in the Zoom also makes a difference, but in-person sends a stronger message! …

Presumably Bruce McGough, Soc Sci Assoc Dean and Professor of Economics, will take the lead on explaining why President Scholz has not bothered to make a serious response to UAUO’s modest proposal to get faculty pay to average, three years from now.

Some interesting heterogeneity in UO faculty pay relative to market

The Knight Campus, Ed School, and Journalism faculty are doing OK (and this does not include their lucrative consulting gigs or summer money). Business is at 91% of peers. CAS at 86%. Law salaries are the worst at 83%. All comparisons are to the other AAU publics, data and computations from the AAUDE. In the past I’ve found significant errors in the data JP Monroe’s office of Institutional Research submits to the AAUDE, but I have not checked these most recent numbers.

You can drill down to the department level at https://ir.uoregon.edu/sites/ir1.uoregon.edu/files/AppendixIIIALLAAUPUBLICSHighLowAvgbyDisc_2012-13.pdf and find individual salaries by name at https://ir.uoregon.edu/sites/ir1.uoregon.edu/files/Unclassified%20110123.pdf