Posts published by “UO Matters”

I’ve taught at UO since 1995, and thanks to my students and colleagues in economics and other departments, and the many helpful staff and OA’s, it has been a wonderful place for me. That said I’m looking forward to a new and different life at the end of a dirt road on Orcas Island. The blog will continue with help from others, so keep those rumors and documents coming. Guest posts, including non-defamatory ones, are always welcome. uomatters at gmail dot com.

To my students: Yeah it is weird that my paycheck stops a week before the end of the term, but I think they’ll still let me post your grades.

Back in 2014 UO’s VPFA Jamie Moffitt signed off on this deal giving millions in subsidies to the law school, which at the time was run by her husband Michael Moffitt. The money came from UO’s “Education & General fund”, which is to say mostly undergraduate tuition and state support:…

Check your January paystub – there should be an extra 4 hours in there. Why? UO had shorted 9 month faculty on their pay for September, with some strange calendrical calculations that had been going on for years. In some half-months faculty were underpaid, in some overpaid. Looking forward there…

Thanks to a reader for the link. https://news.missouristate.edu/2024/01/18/missouri-state-announces-three-finalists-for-president/ It’s a transparent open search run with no apparent interference from a search firm. Three finalists announced publicly and brought to campus for the university to meet with and provide feedback to the Board, *before* the final hiring decision. Astounding. Thompson should…

After President Schill’s 2017 State of the University speech in the EMU was interrupted by querulous students UO started giving large donations to the Eugene City Club, in exchange for letting the UO President talk there instead of a UO location where our students might show up. It seems President…

Senator Michael Dembrow and the university unions organized to end the old system, where the UO Board members nominated the children of their friends to be UO’s student trustees. Here’s the legislative history, check the testimony. Here’s Around the 0: The University of Oregon Board of Trustees is seeking applicants…

Analysis from CSN, a regular reader: What’s the outcome? The big story is the flattening of the GE wage scale. This is both through the changes to the minimums to bring GE I and GE II up to GE III, and through the cutoff implemented for ATB raises for those…

Dear faculty colleagues,  I am writing about the status of bargaining with the Graduate Teaching Fellows Federation and to address academic and research continuity planning so that faculty members are informed as negotiations continue and a potential GTFF strike approaches.    GTFF Bargaining Status Update  The bargaining teams met yesterday…

Greetings, colleagues. As you likely have heard, the GTFF has declared an Intent to Strike starting Wednesday, January 17, 2024. An Intent to Strike is the last official requirement before a legal strike can occur. While there will be another bargaining session on January 11, all signs point to a…

January 8, 2024 2:00pm–3:00pm Emergency Mtg – remote via ZoomRemote Meeting  | Agenda | FileWinter 2024 Academic Council Reccomendations for Continuity 1-3-24.pdf Video of last week’s meeting here:

I *think* that’s Johnson Hall trying to claim that they’ve made a generous offer to the GE’s, though that’s hardly the only way to parse it. From Interim Provost Karen Ford’s email about the GTFF strike, which is scheduled for Jan 17: Dear UO faculty member,   The University of…

January 3, 2024 1:00pm–2:00pm Remote Meeting link Agenda: Winter 2024 Academic Council Reccomendations [sic] for Continuity – DRAFT.pdf

Dear Members of the Harvard Community, It is with a heavy heart but a deep love for Harvard that I write to share that I will be stepping down as president. This is not a decision I came to easily. Indeed, it has been difficult beyond words because I have…