We’re going to be busy. And in an admirable improvement in transparency from last year’s Senate president, Sinclair will hold open office hours at the Schnitzer Museum cafe, 9-11 every Wednesday, and at the Faculty Club ~5:15-6:30 after Senate meetings.
10/4/2017 Meeting:
9/27/2017 with 10/4 update:
Normally about 260 people pass the July Oregon Bar exam. This spring the Oregon Supreme Court dumbed down the pass score and made some other changes, and 360 people passed. Obviously this is good news for the 100 students who otherwise wouldn’t be licensed to practice law, and good news for the Oregon Bar, which collects an annual $470 from each. It’s bad news for those 260 students who would have passed the older, harder exam, and who now have to try and find a job in an even more flooded job market.
Oregon’s pass rate for the July exam, (all takers, not just UO students) has jumped from 58% last year to 79% this year. That’s a 21 percentage point increase or a (79-58)/58=36% increase in the success odds, in one year. In July 2016 the average pass rate for all US takers was 62%, compared to 58% for Oregon. So we were a little low, but not by much.
In July 2016, only Nebraska had a higher percentage of takers (82%) passing than Oregon’s 2017 new rate of 79%. (Kansas and Missouri were tied at 79%, Oregon’s new rate). See http://www.ncbex.org/pdfviewer/?file=%2Fdmsdocument%2F205 So, with one decision made without adequate prior public notice or discussion, and apparently with no discussion in the Oregon Supreme Court, Oregon has gone from being middle of the road to being among the four easiest states in which to get a license to practice law.
This is not what the Oregon Board of Bar Examiners intended. According to internal documents obtained with a public records request, the BBX believed these changes would increase the pass rate to about 68%. They explicitly rejected a proposal from the three deans of Oregon’s law schools for an even lower cut-score, apparently because they thought that would produce a pass rate of 78%, which they thought was too high. I wonder if the deans will now argue for raising the cut-score and lowering the pass rate?
(From the April 19 letter from BBX chair Jeffrey Howes to Oregon Chief SC Justice Thomas Balmer, at https://uomatters.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Official-letters-to-Court-BBX-PubRcrdsReq-Aug-17.pdf)
In short Oregon’s new test, with the new lower cut-score, is much easier to pass than the old one, and much easier than the BBX led the Supreme Court to believe. It has given Oregon what is almost the highest pass rate in the country.
It’s true that the new exam will also make it easier for Oregon law students to move to other states, assuming their score was high enough to have passed those state’s cut-rate. But why is Oregon subsidizing the tuition of out-of-state students who will take out-of state legal jobs – if they can even find them?
For comparison, last July:
Michael Tobin has a brief report about this in the Daily Emerald, here.
10/4/2017 NOTE: I’ve now received two letters from the Oregon Bar, arguing that they did not break the public meetings law, while also promising that they will now post meeting notices on the bar’s website. As you can see from their October posting, they’re still trying to figure this transparency thing out:
…
I’ve got some more public records requests into them and the Oregon Supreme Court (which has updated its website and fixed some of its public records procedures in response to my previous questions to them) and I will post what I find out.
Posted 9/27/2017 and earlier:
That would be President Brian Rosenberg of Macalester College, on the NYT op-ed page here.
The full list of officially approved UO workplace news is on Around the O here. 1) Scott Pratt, Extraordinary Vice Provost for Academic Affairs, gets some much needed help: Scott Pratt, executive vice provost for academic affairs, announced that Ellen Herman, professor of history and faculty co-director of University of Oregon’s…
10/1/2017: Among the years of reports, last summer Daily Emerald reporter Max Thornberry had this about this famously mismanaged office, here. A snippet: Concerns about the timeliness and effectiveness of the AAEO office [aren’t] new. A 2014 report from the ombuds office found that, “classified staff report high levels of distrust…in the fairness, competence…
Pintens was recently demoted from his job of Duck spokesperson and replaced by Jimmy Stanton. Then he failed to get the deputy AD job at Purdue. Now Mullens has put him in charge of selling football tickets. I’m not sure he’s really got it figured out yet. Pintens is trying…
9/29/2017:
http://ia601505.us.archive.org/2/items/gov.uscourts.ord.132472/gov.uscourts.ord.132472.19.0.pdf
Page down for more details.
9/6/2017: UO lawyers want to out anonymous plaintiff in sexual misconduct case
I’m posting this for the record, I don’t pretend to understand it all. Like many universities, UO’s GCO pulls out FERPA when they want to avoid disclosing unpleasant info, for example when athletes are accused of assaults. But in this case UO’s hired attorneys are in favor of transparency and naming names.
Dennis Galvan (Poli Sci) is the new head of Undergraduate Studies. I know I’ve said a few unkind things about Dennis in the past, but that was only because I knew he was a better man than Ali Bongo deserved. UGS is the right job for him. I’m not being…
I’ve always said that the UO administration could end this muckraking website any time they wanted to, simply by being honest and transparent. A quick glance at the public records log will convince you that our Johnson Hall leadership is not there yet. However, if current trends continue, UO M will…
Thanks to The Oregonian for the lodging advice: It’s unclear where Sondland would serve his diplomatic post, if nominated by Trump and confirmed by the U.S. Senate. Fifty of the 188 U.S. ambassadorships are vacant, according to the American Foreign Service Association. There are some plum openings, however, including vacant…
Kenny Jacoby in the Weekly: Contracts between the UO athletic department and its employees often include a clause saying the department will provide the employee one or two courtesy cars to use during their employment. The clauses also state that if the athletic department is unable to provide a car,…
I’m no former marine electrician, but it’s harder than you’d think. I asked a union friend and he sent me some links. The first one had a default of $9.99 a month and no way to change it. I’m guessing it’s a bit hard for them to update their website…
Update: Chief Carmichael reported the cost as $3533.41. So the winner is longtime commenter “Fishwrapper” at $3768.79, runner up is Amy Adams at $3137. Congrats to you both, please contact our swag office with a mailing address, or if you prefer the location of a dead-drop site far from security…
Call me a cynic, but it’s as if Trump’s AG Jeff Sessions is trying his best to destroy support for free speech among college students. That can’t be his goal, can it? What evidence is there, other than his lifetime of efforts to deny people their voting rights? The NYT…
Dear University of Oregon campus community, As I drove onto campus this week, I got a familiar feeling of excitement. New students were settling into their residence halls and beginning to navigate the campus. Returning students were greeting each other and catching up on what they did during the summer.…