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12/30/2014 update:

Bloomberg reports that Duck football players have $1.38 million in bonuses riding on bowl games, in the Oregonian here. Oh, wait, this is the NCAA, so it’s all for the coaches. About half of that is already due. Plus the Johnson Hall junkets, of course. I wonder where our AD Rob Mullens will get the money? Oh, right …

12/1/2014: Ticket revenue flat, so Ducks hit up students for more ASUO money

Short version: The Ducks have hit price resistance from their regular fans, so they want to raise the fee to student government to $90 per student, to provide “free” tickets.

John Canzano on how big-time college sports corrupts everything

In the Oregonian, here, with a link to his previous investigative reports on the alleged 1998 gang rape by members of the OSU football team: … The Benton County District Attorney’s office and the blossoming enterprise that was the Beavers’ athletic department had a close working relationship, according to Sandrock.…

Jennifer Winters and Rita Radostitz ghost wrote VP Robin Holmes’ Op-Ed on the basketball rape allegations and how UO handled them

From what I can tell this ghost written Op-Ed is the last official statement from the UO administration on how Johnson Hall handled the basketball rape allegations. There is no sign that there will ever been any kind of investigation, much less one that will be publicly released. Gottfredson’s self-appointed…

UO’s $5M academic brand campaign to take on “Go Ducks” steamroller at Rose Bowl

We’ve now got two PR machines fighting to get out different messages about UO. On the one hand there’s the “Go Ducks” brand, encouraging students to come to a party school with football-fueled binge drinking. Add to that the basketball rape allegations and the mismanaged administrative cover-up, and we’re really not delivering the…

Striking students clash with police at UO’s partner University Omar Bongo, in Gabon

12/18/2014: And people at UO flip out over a few picketing grad students? Last I heard the status of the $15M endowment payment to the UO Foundation was still up in the air. I can’t imagine $60 oil is going to increase the chances it will happen. 6/18/2014 update: Trouble in…

Coltrane to give Duck AD Rob Mullens a retention offer, drop perverse incentives?

Rumor down at the faculty club snookers table is that Duck athletic director Rob Mullens is entertaining an offer from high roller Gordon Gee, currently president at West Virginia University. It seems unlikely Mullens would seriously consider a step down like that, even if he is an alumnus. But maybe he can…

Nominations now open for worst (and best) of the University of Oregon’s 2014 annus horribilis

It’s time to start collecting nominations. I’ll get things started, please add yours in the comments. (Very helpful if you include the link.) Voting for the worst of the worst and the best of the best will start eventually. Google reports that UO Matters had 868K pageviews for the year: The…

Senate repudiates Triplett and Park proposal, directs TAIF to investigate potential retaliation against faculty

12/14/2014: Video of the Senate meeting is now available:

12/10/2014 PM update:

Alexandra Wallachly from the Emerald has posted a report on the meeting, here.

On the Board meeting Thursday: I think it’s important to show up at the Board meeting Thursday at 8AM in the Alumni Center. While the board has backed off on the latest power grab, there’s plenty of potential for surprises, those making public comments deserve some supporters, and it’s important that the Board sees that the faculty take what’s been happening very seriously. And I hear someone will be passing out “Save our Senate” buttons.

On the Senate meeting today: I got there at the very end. I’d love it if someone would send me some notes or post them. People tell me it was standing room only, and filled with dismay and outrage over what’s going on with our administration.

The Senate passed an amended version of the motion below, opposing the Triplett/Park power grab. The fact that they did this even after Coltrane announced the Board would withdraw the motion at his suggestion shows how deep the mistrust of Johnson Hall has become. Coltrane and Bronet need to take charge of that snake-pit, decisively and soon.

The Senate then apparently wrote and approved a second motion, directing the Academic Integrity Task Force to investigate the administration’s “alleged plans to establish groundwork for disciplinary procedures” against Philosophy Dept Chair Bonnie Mann and other faculty who refused to issue “fraudulent” grades. Apparently there is also an accusation that a CAS administrator not only gave out grades for courses, but then raised them after students complained. I don’t know if the TAIF will also investigate that.

I’ll post the video when available, and I expect the motions (passed unanimously?) will be on the Senate website soon, here. Meanwhile check Try Bree Nicolello’s twitter reports on the meeting: https://twitter.com/breenicolello.

12/10/2014 update: (see below for Coltrane response)

Sorry, I’m at the Board committee meetings, no live-blog.