In the Daily Emerald here: UO has a long history of expensive and ineffective diversity and inclusion efforts, mostly coming out of the bloated offices of our Provost and VPEI Yvette Alex-Assensoh. Five year “Diversity Action Plans” with no follow through, an under-represented faculty cluster hire that brought 5 new…
Posts published in “Uncategorized”
10/27/2020 update: This is very strange and troubling. (Full disclosure: I’m just an economist, not a finance professor or auditor, nor am I a UO Board of Trustees member charged by state law with a fiduciary responsibility to UO.) A month ago I put up the post below, centered around…
10/27/2020 Update:
1) Still no response to my public records request.
2) meeting to be 11AM to about 1 by zoom. Link at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_IPdpPUCNI&feature=youtu.be
3) AGENDA AND MATERIALS now posted:
Public Comment
Individuals wishing to provide public comment to the Board of Trustees may do so in writing via [email protected]. All comments will be shared with members of the board, but to ensure comments are provided to trustees in advance of the meeting, they must be received by 5:00 a.m. [sic] Pacific Time on October 28, 2020.
- Fall Term Operations and COVID-19 Health and Safety Update: Michael Schill, President; Patrick Phillips, Provost and Senior Vice President; and Andre LeDuc, Associate Vice President and Chief Resilience Officer.
Don’t expect any tough questions from our Trustees about this report:

2. University of Oregon Foundation Overview: Paul Weinhold, President, University of Oregon Foundation.
It’s generous of Mr. Weinhold, whom the Foundation paid ~$580K a year last time they released the data, to take a break from his second job as Chairman of the Board of Summit Bank to present to the UO Board.
Back in the day the Foundation broke out what it sent to UO for Academics, Athletics, etc in their annual reports. Weinhold has put an end to that, but it appears he will do some explaining about poor investment returns and expenses (most of which come from a fee he charges small donors, while giving a break to the big ones who want to, say, give the Ducks a $12M Jumbotron.

3. Information Services Report: Jessie Minton, Chief Information Officer.
All seems to be going according to plan.
10/26/2020: Trustee’s Chair Chuck Lillis and Angela Wilhelms still haven’t disclosed time & agenda for Th Board meeting
Nor have they responded to this public records request, which might give some clues:
On behalf of Senate President Elliot Berkman and Senate Vice President and President-Elect Spike Gildea: Dear University of Oregon Community, We are writing in our roles as faculty members serving as the University Senate President and Vice President. We are writing as individuals and not speaking on behalf of the Senate. But we have spoken with…
The Emerald has the administration’s explanation, such as it is, and other testing updates here.
Reporter Jordyn Brown. Some snippets below, full report here: UO’s overall enrollment is down about 3%, a drop of about 678 students, according to preliminary data shared with The Register-Guard. The majority comes from its freshmen class, which has 610 fewer students over last year’s class — a 13.3% drop. … [UO’s $278K VP for…
Just kidding. Kevin Reed saves those sorts of threats for faculty, and Coach Cristobal’s about to get a big raise. The Oregonian’s James Crepea has the disclosure from Cristobal that 5 of the 32 positive Covid tests in Lane County today (yesterday?) were “associated with the program” and that the…
Does anyone know if there is a similar university-wide listing? Dear Colleagues, As one way to welcome new faculty to our College and University each year, we provide a short profile for each of them. These profiles are easily one of the most visited pages on our CAS website each…
John Canzano in the Oregonian, here: “A high-ranking UO athletic department source told me in February that the sides were involved in a serious discussions. Cristobal’s agent was in regular contact with Oregon AD Rob Mullens. I expected a long-term deal to be announced in March or April at the latest, but…
Thanks to regular commenter “Townie” for the link to the Oct 9th Chronicle of Philanthropy report. I don’t know why Around the O hasn’t yet posted anything about what UO programs this generous donation will fund: “In addition, Knight quietly gave $300 million to the University of Oregon, his alma…
Update and Correction: I have to eat a little crow on this post. A well informed expert at another university asked me if I was sure that I wasn’t confusing “First time entering Freshmen” with “Fall enrollment” of freshman. These can be different because continuing students who enrolled in past…
That would, of course, be the OSU Board. Here at UO, it took a public records request to Board Secretary Angela Wilhelms to get a copy of their self-assessment (they think they’re doing a heck of a job) and I’ve never heard of them having a work plan. Full document…
Update – As Thomas Hager helpfully notes in the comments, Lane County Public Health is considerably more transparent than UO. For example, as of 8 days ago, 14 outbreaks in the UO Greek System, with 95 cases, or 22% of all of Lane County’s cases in the preceding week: From…
University of Oregon Mission Statement Serving the state, nation and world since 1876 The University of Oregon is a comprehensive public research university committed to exceptional teaching, discovery, and service. We work at a human scale to generate big ideas. As a community of scholars, we help individuals question critically,…
Dear University of Oregon community, In the coming days, the University of Oregon will expand COVID-19 surveillance testing conducted by our in-house Monitoring and Assessment Program (MAP). Our first phase of MAP testing was primarily focused on students living in residence halls. Having that capability in-house was vital to our efforts…