That also seems like a reasonable estimate of the ratio of good to bad publicity that big-time Duck athletics has brought to UO lately, not counting the damage from basketball coach Dana Altman of course. With only 1.8M hits, the Animal House Shout video starring Marcus Mariota that was produced by…
Posts published in “Uncategorized”
The Chicago Tribune has the story here: He keeps the dog, and a shitload of student tuition money.
9/17/2015: This is the UO administration’s “advisory council”, that was appointed without consulting with the UO Senate. Or maybe it’s the Title IX Management Team that was appointed without consulting the Senate. Because sexual assault is not an academic matter? I’m no law professor, but I believe the whole reason Title IX applies…
Long piece in the NYT, here. Very interesting stuff: The University of California is struggling with budget woes that have deeply affected campus life. Yet the system’s nine colleges still lead the nation in providing top-flight college education to the masses. At many other colleges, poor and truly middle-class students remain…
9/17/2015: Move it along professor, nothing to see here. Really?
From: “Thornton, Lisa” <[email protected]> Subject: Public Records Request 2016-PRR-078
Date: September 17, 2015 at 11:04:14 AM PDT
To: [email protected]
Reply-To: [email protected]
09/17/2015
Dear Mr. Harbaugh-
Records responsive to your request made 9/15/2015 [for a copy of the instructions to the auditor showing what he will examine, etc.] are exempt from disclosure under ORS 192.501 (37). However, the university has chosen to provide you with the preliminary objectives of the upcoming athletics risk assessmentt, which you can find below.
The Objectives
• To gain an understanding of the athletics program in order to identify inherent risks.
• Identify systems and processes along with related controls that are intended to mitigate these risks.
• The results of this work will be used to develop a multiple year, risk based audit plan.
The office considers this to be fully responsive to your request, and will now close your matter. Thank you for contacting the office with your request.
Sincerely, Lisa Thornton, Office of Public Records
The DOJ’s Public Records Manual says, regarding ORS 192.501 (37):
Enacted in 2011, this exemption allows, but does not require, public bodies to decline to disclose documents and information related to audits of the public body (or audits the public body is conducting with respect to other public bodies) while the audit is ongoing. In order to qualify for this exemption, the auditor or audit organization must be operating under “nationally recognized government auditing standards,” and the audit must still be ongoing. An audit is ongoing when it has not been abandoned, and the final audit report in accordance with nationally recognized government auditing standards has not been issued. Note that this exemption expressly states that it “does not prohibit disclosure of a draft audit report that is provided to the audited entity for the entity’s response to the audit findings.”
9/10/2015: Page down for latest email from UO auditor Brenda Muirhead.
5/20/2015: Audit of athletic dept risks due this fall – and another cut to Duck subsidies?
The last audit cut the subsidy for the Ducks by $555,227, recurring. How much will this one save?
Insidehighered has a story today about the role of search firms in hiring university administrators, focusing on Parker Search and the botched University of Iowa presidential search. It seems that was a political set-up, and Parker president Laurie Wilder was just along for the ride. While Iowa paid Parker $200K, UO Trustee Connie Ballmer…
And all that barely a month after learning about the incident.
Of course I’m not talking about UO, or consequences for Dana Altman over his decision to enroll Brandon Austin. Not only did UO not suspend or fine Altman, so far as I can tell we let him and AD Rob Mullens keep their bonus checks for getting into the NCAA tournament, under some pretty reprehensible circumstances. As for releasing the investigation report by Amanda Walkup of the Hershner Hunter law firm, dream on Oregonian, dream on.
While UO is now overdue for its next big Duck scandal, the latest example of the kind of brand-enhancing publicity that big-time sports brings to universities comes from Rutgers. Here’s the letter from President Robert Barchi, who has acquired a lot of experience dealing with athletics scandals. It’s amazing he still finds the time to run a university:
Dear Members of the Rutgers Community:
Since our University was established almost 250 years ago, Rutgers has grown to become the State of New Jersey’s premier public institution of higher learning. With that designation, we have an obligation to provide outstanding educational opportunities, to ensure high quality and productive research, to serve the local, national and world communities, and to do so with integrity and a steadfast commitment to the central academic mission of our university. It is in this context that I provide you with the following report.
As some of you may be aware, the University has been reviewing an allegation that the Head Football Coach at Rutgers University-New Brunswick, Kyle Flood, circumvented established policies and procedures in contacting a faculty member to discuss the academic standing of a student-athlete. This allegation was first reported to the University on August 12th and within 24 hours, after consultations with our Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs, with our Interim Senior Vice President & General Counsel and with the Interim Senior Vice President for Enterprise Risk Management, Ethics and Compliance, the University retained an outside investigator and counsel and undertook an investigation of the charge.
Yesterday, I received the final investigative report and I have decided to release the report, with limited redactions required by privacy laws, as I want the University community to understand both what we now know and the thorough nature of the investigation. The report is available at http://president.rutgers.edu/files/Final-Report.pdf.
Below is a brief summary of some of the major findings:
“Free-riding public employees may benefit from union bargaining without paying their fair share of union costs” In Oregon the DOJ writes the title that appears on the ballot, and it seems the initiative’s sponsors don’t think they’ll get many votes with that one. Jeff Mapes has the story in the Oregonian, here.…
9/14/2015: UO announces $115M in research funding for 2014-15 Interim VP for Research Brad Shelton’s office has just released the 14-15 fact sheet here. $103.5M in federal grants: The University of Oregon has more than doubled its research funding over the last twenty years to a total of $114.6 million in sponsored projects…
9/12/2015: Andy Greif has the game preview in the Oregonian here – though not the financial details. Maybe UO still hasn’t responded to that public records request. Last year GSU won 1 out of 12 football games, and brought in just $654,347 from ticket sales for football and basketball combined. So their athletic…
– but only if that business doesn’t compete with their coach’s income. Steve Berkowitz has the report in USA Today, here. The Daily Show nailed this 2 years ago: This South Park episode is pretty wicked too.
The September 10th live-blog is here. Live-video feed here. Noah McGraw’s ODE live-blog is here. Board docket is here. Summary of the Th and Fr board meetings: The good: The board is obviously very happy with President Schill, as they should be. There were no sneak attacks on faculty governance…
Economist Susan Dynarski in the NYT, here: And the data suggests that many popular perceptions of student debt are incorrect. The huge run-up in loans and the subsequent spike in defaults have not been driven by $100,000 debts incurred by students at expensive private colleges like N.Y.U. Some students might…
Great news: The staff that keep UO from sinking into the abyss have negotiated a contract with OUS: Dear Friends, We did it! Because higher ed workers have been standing strong together at campuses around the state, our bargaining team has won a contract settlement that features some of the highest…
This is a work in progress. If you see anything interesting in the meeting material please post a comment. Live-blog for Sept 11th here.
Also see Reporter Noah McGraw’s post on the upcoming meetings in the Daily Emerald, here, and check his live-blog here.
Great news! The trustees are now live-streaming their meetings, here. Now if Kevin Reed will just fix the public records office, I can finally end this damn blog.
Highlights from Sept 10th:
As of 10:30, not much. The Exec committee agreed to tone down their counter-attack on free-speech on cheerleaders.
Slusher talks about Mariota center. Board tries to connect this to research, Slusher doesn’t bite – it’s about applying existing knowledge to winning games.
No serious questions about Hayward field tart-up.
OUS settles with SEIU, and Moffitt presents budget for 2015-16. Turns out she did have the money for faculty raises after all. What a surprise. She’s worried about 2016-17. What a surprise.
1:00PM, full board meeting. They’ve rearranged the room so as to keep the unwashed as far back as possible.
In public comments, students not excited about tuition guarantee idea.
More on how to deal with HECC, faculty hiring plans at bottom.
Page down for schedule and live-blog.