Betsy Hammond in the Oregonian, here. The report, here, paints the Association of American Universities (Bob Berdahl, former President) as an outdated old boys club, and calls for a “New AAU”. Dave Frohnmayer, UO President from 1995 to 2009 and now a noted tobacco company attorney, blames UO’s decline over…
Posts published in “Uncategorized”
6/16/2014 update: Aided by a massive infusion of PAC cash from redacted t-shirt sales, I managed to get re-elected to the UO Senate.
Packed agenda here. Board of Trustees of the University of Oregon Finance and Facilities Committee Meeting June 3, 2014 Tuesday, June 3, 2014 – Public Meeting – Ford Alumni Center, Room 403 9:00am 1.0 Convene Call to Order and Welcome Roll Call Looks like a full house, about…
That’s the latest rumor, from the SBNation sports blog. Frankly it seems wildly implausible that another university will take any of these three, after reading the DA’s report. Yes, Alex Gardner concluded he couldn’t prove beyond a reasonable doubt that what happened March 8-9 was a gang rape, but most…
Rumor is the exhibit includes Darron Thomas’s pipe, which he donated to the Knight Library archives. It’s empty, of course, because, well, he’d smoked it all. From the Emerald, here.
6/1/2014 update: The Chronicle of Higher Ed has a fascinating story, here:
MARVIN CLARK JR. was sold. Fresh off a recruiting visit to the University of Oregon two years ago, he was convinced he wanted to play there.
He loved the Ducks’ fast-paced offense, the team needed a player at his position, and one of his youth coaches had played for an Oregon assistant. That was the type of edge that could help in a battle for playing time.
The campus wowed him. Everywhere he looked, he saw the Nike swoosh. The company’s co-founder, a big Oregon donor, had helped finance some of the nicest facilities in the country. For a kid who had spent time in homeless shelters, it seemed like nirvana.
A year ago, Mr. Clark made it official, committing to the Pac-12 program over more than a dozen other suitors. Around the same time, he had surgery to repair a fractured foot, forcing him to miss several months on the court. A fractured foot, surgically repaired with a screw, set Mr. Clark’s plans back a year ago.
He was prepared to graduate from high school last year, but Oregon’s coaches had encouraged him to spend a year at a prep school. The week he returned to the court, two Oregon coaches visited him there. It was his first game back, and it showed. After the game, he says, the coaches started to walk out of the gym without offering a word.
That night Mr. Clark hardly slept, fearing that he had lost his scholarship. The next day he called one of his coaches, who had been in touch with Oregon. Mr. Clark’s instincts were right—Oregon had moved on. …
5/12/2014: Did Lorraine Davis vet Brandon Austin?
I’m guessing President Gottfredson has received hundreds if not thousands of emails and letters from alumni and parents about his mishandling of the rape allegations, and UO’s failure to deal with the larger campus problem. An alumni petition has now been started, here: … As U of O Alums, we…
5/30/2014 update: Rumors prove false. The Trustees have now posted the June 12-13 meeting material, here. The delegation revisions start at page 55. At first glance this new draft seems to have addressed at least some of the Senate’s problems with Geller’s initial secret policy, but expect further review by the Senate’s ad hoc committee, chaired by President Rob Kyr (Music).
In other news, the board will host a public roundtable lunch discussion with former Interim UO President Bob Berdahl on Thursday, June 12. Berdahl’s brief presidency (and the hiring of Sharon Rudnick) was instrumental in persuading the UO faculty, including me, that a faculty union was needed to counterbalance the bat-shit craziness in Johnson Hall. As it has proved to be.
Among Berdahl’s last acts at UO were giving Jim Bean and Randy Geller three-year contract extensions, the dismantling of President Lariviere’s transparency initiative, and big raises for Rob Mullens and his coaches.
Highlights of his earlier career as UC-Berkeley President include committing the university to an unaffordable football stadium, quickly followed by a lucrative golden parachute buyout. Given the current situation with Mike Gottfredson and our Trustees, it is clear Berdahl’s expertise on buyouts will be invaluable.
5/30/2014 update: Gottfredson hiding new draft of “Delegation of Board Authority” policy from faculty?
He has no sense of shame. He is trying to claim credit for what was accomplished by 18 months of hard work by the Senate and the United Academics faculty union, over his determined opposition: The policy as approved by the Senate April 9th is here. Notable points? Members of…
Click here to order. Details on Dave Hubin and Mike Gottfredson’s astonishing redactions here. All profits go to buy your editor more redacted scotch. Speyside, Highland, or Islay? Sorry, this is all I have to show you, under Randy Geller’s interpretation of Oregon public records law:
Let’s hope this is the beginning of the end.
5/29/2014: UO Trustees Academic Affairs committee to meet today
Notice: The UO Trustee’s committees will meet On May 29 and June 3, and the full board will meet June 12-13. Info here. Today’s meeting:
12:30 PM, Thursday, May 29, 2014 – Public Meeting – HEDCO Education Building, Room 230T
1.0 Convene
• Call to Order and Welcome (Mary Wilcox)
• Roll Call
Present: Coltrane, Holmes, Geller(!), Thompson, K Willcox, Ford, Shelton, Chapa, Altmann. On the phone: M Willcox, Dotters-Katz, Lillis. No Curry, no Blandy. About 15 in the audience.
President Gottfredson is missing. Odd, it’s on his schedule.
Greg Bolt has the story, in Around the O. Mayr will get the von Humbolt award from the German president, next week. The ceremony will be at a castle.
5/28/2014, 3PM-?PM, 115 Lawrence. The agenda is here. Live video will be here. I’ll try to live blog a little, inserting comments into the agenda below. But first, Gottfredson will speak. Here’s hoping he’ll just announce his resignation and let us get on with the work of running our university. On the…
If Gottfredson had come clean about the alleged March 8-9 assaults back in April when he got the final EPD report, we could have had time to think and prepare. But instead of informing the Senate, he went to his Athletic Director. We found out the same way the UO Police Chief did – from the newspapers. So this motion will be on the already packed agenda for May 28:
2.1 BE IT HEREBY MOVED THAT the University of Oregon Senate, in consultation with Undergraduate Council, work on the addition of a mandatory Multicultural course for Undergraduate students on the topics of gender, sexuality, social inequality, and sexual violence; and
2.2 BE IT FURTHER MOVED THAT the contents of the course are constructed with consultation from the Head of the Ethnic Studies Department (or their designee) and the Head of the Women’s and Gender Studies Department (or their designee); and
2.3 BE IT FURTHER MOVED THAT this course requirement be implemented no later than Fall 2016.
Undergrad Council Chair Josh Snodgrass (Anthropology) has written the Senate tonight, explaining the reasons for giving this important proposal full consideration and deliberate discussion – not something that can be done tomorrow:
Dear Senate Members,
I am writing to you on behalf of the Undergraduate Council about the proposed motion (4.12) to add a new multicultural course requirement to the undergraduate curriculum.
I was unable to attend the May 21 Senate meeting but watched the video of the meeting. I was troubled by the repeated references to the inability of UO committees—including the Undergraduate Council, which I chair—to effectively perform their duties. I am certainly aware of times when committees are overly bureaucratic and inefficient, but the current matter (i.e., considering whether to add a multicultural requirement on gender, sexuality, social inequality, and sexual violence) is not one of them. I was first made aware of the proposal to add a multicultural requirement on May 19 (by Helena Schlegel, who asked me about the process for adding a multicultural requirement) and no formal request has yet been brought to the Council. Given that nothing has been brought to the Undergraduate Council it borders on the bizarre to discuss our failures.
Like all of you, I am deeply troubled by recent events and the repeated campus failures on issues related to sexual violence. I agree that we need action and that this action should be on multiple fronts. However, I do not support the proposed new multicultural requirement. My objections are as follows: