That’s the take from OPB reporter Steve Law, in the RG: For those affected, it’s roughly a 2 percent hit. The PERS actuary calculated that a typical 55-year-old retiring Dec. 1 on Money Match would avert a 1.9 percent reduction in his or her pension that takes effect starting with…
Posts published in “Uncategorized”
Here’s my reply to Randy’s “Happy Holidays, you slackers” message to the UO faculty. No wonder he’s so bitter – he just blew $1M in UO money on anti-union lawyers like Sharon Rudnick and permanently trashed his chances of finding another university that will hire him. The faculty, on the…
Good report, here.
That would be in China, according to the NYT.
12/10/2013 update: All in all, this meeting was a refreshing effort by Scott Coltrane and Brad Shelton to tell the faculty a little about what’s going on at UO and get some feedback about where to go w.r.t. future priorities. About 30 faculty risked frostbite and ostracism by the administration to show up and ask some skeptical questions.
The presentation on enrollment patterns was well done, and led to a good discussion about tradeoffs. No big surprises: UO students are well below our comparators in SATs and in graduation rates.
The information about faculty output and research, on the other hand, was pretty amateurish. We got the same basic story discussed in my November analysis of Coltrane’s benchmarking report, here. UO’s faculty is extremely productive when it comes to graduating undergraduates – twice the number of the other AAU publics. Not so much and falling when it comes to PhDs. There was no effort to control for med school / engineering school effects. Shelton and Coltrane got called out on this many times, and asked how they expected us to meaningfully contribute to discussion about academic priorities without good data. UO has these data, but for whatever reason they decided not to show them to the faculty. After the complaints, they promised to do so at a future meeting. This response was also a welcome improvement in transparency.
The most disappointing part to me, and judging by the questions, also to others, was the near total absence of financial data. It’s hard to talk about priorities when you don’t know the constraints. Shelton insisted that the only reliable data was that UO’s budget, per undergraduate, is about half the AAU average. The meeting concluded with a discussion of whether or not we could stay in the AAU, and whether or not we should try, given the opportunity cost.
As it happens, Johnson Hall has been much more forthcoming with the new UO Board than it ever has been with the faculty, and I’ve been able to get the documents from the first Board meeting. I haven’t had time to look them over yet, but the comments are open:
- 01 Overview.pdf
- 02 Diversity.pdf
- 03 Academic.pdf
- 04 Faculty and Staff.pdf
- 05 Research.pdf
- 06 Students.pdf
- 07 Finance.pdf
- 08 Athletics.pdf
- 09 University Advancement.pdf
- 10 Benchmarking.pdf
- Admissions viewbook 2014 resident.pdf
- Letter from the President.pdf
- Notice of Meeting 11 11 13_0.pdf
- Notice of Meeting 102413.pdf
- Orientation Meeting Agenda 102913.pdf
- Orientation Meeting Agenda 111113_0.pdf
- Powering the State’s Economy 2013.pdf
- UO OEM Annual Report 2012.pdf
- UO Snapshot 2013 FINAL 02-05-13 rev 10-15-13.pdf
12/2/2013: Coltrane on benchmarking and priorities
Dear Campus Community,
As the President described in remarks to the Senate at its last meeting, I invite you to
One by one the chamois flee – the rest stick together. And then?
That would be the Oregon State University Board of Trustees. Betsy Hammond has the story in the Oregonian here. The link to the OSU Trustees page with notice of the public meeting is here. They also issued a press release telling everyone the meeting would be public. The UO Trustees met…
Looks like the the Ducks are going to the Alamo Bowl. In 2011, the last year for which data is available (IRS 990 here) the San Antonio Bowl Association brought in $10M from tickets and TV revenue from the “Valero Alamo Bowl”. They paid out $6.1M to the football teams:…
“A Texas university student has been shot dead by a campus police officer during a routine traffic stop. Robert Cameron Redus, 23, was killed when Corporal Chris Carter, 35, opened fire on him in the early hours of Friday morning a few blocks away from the University of the Incarnate Word…
That would be Portland State President Wim Weiwel. Ken Goe has the story in the Oregonian, here: Portland State president Wim Wiewel has directed that the PSU football team become self-sufficient by the 2014-15 academic year. … Their football program loses money. In comparison UO’s football program makes millions, which…
12/6/2013: Troy Brynelson has a story on the Senate meeting in the ODE, here. I’ll have a write up soon. 12/4/2013 update on “Senate President refuses to allow vote on athletic subsidies”: After substantial pressure from many Senators, President Paris has now agreed to a process by which the Senate will…
12/5/2013 update: Emeldi case tossed out. Diane Dietz has the scoop, here. 12/3/2013: Emeldi v. UO lawsuit goes to trial in Eugene The Chronicle has a report, here: Monica A. Emeldi hopes the lawsuit she has brought against the University of Oregon helps to empower graduate students when their relationships with…
http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2013/12/4/academics-left-outofcollegefootballsmultibilliondollarbonanza.html
From today’s Harvard Crimson: “I can answer the question, if you want me to.” (Dean) Harris said. “The median grade in Harvard College is indeed an A-. The most frequently awarded grade in Harvard College is actually a straight A.” From UO Matters story, “VPAA Doug Blandy pulls off daring…
The union CBA says research faculty will get raises. The administration signed the CBA. The research faculty *will* get their raises. This memo from VP for Research Espy explains that the money will not come from UO’s research fund – it will come from VP for Finance Moffitt’s emergency fund.…