Over the years this office has been a stew of lethargy, incompetence, insider favoritism, and outrageous self-dealing. Cass has just kept on doing her job for the university through all that, and now she’s in charge. At least for a while. Good move by Provost Phillips, imho: Dear University of…
Posts published in “Uncategorized”
Some extracts from President Schill’s plans to address the financial fallout from the coronavirus. Everything in ” ” is a direct quote from his email to the university today. The translations are from google translate’s new “no bullshit” mode:
Pres Schill: “For a variety of reasons (low state support, high-cost mandatory benefits programs, and a recent drop in international enrollment) our reserves are lower than other peer institutions across the country.”
Translation: Our reserves are low because of other people’s decisions, not because I spent $2.15M wiring up The Phildo or $?M building our new Athletic Village.
Pres Schill: “We also do not think we can look to tuition increases to address major shortfalls the way we did following the last recession. Our nonresident students already pay market tuition, and the incomes of Oregon residents make paying more in tuition very difficult, particularly in a period of mass unemployment.”
Translation: We can’t increase tuition because we just started a very poorly timed tuition guarantee program which means 9% increases for freshmen and locks in low increases for current continuing students. We were told we’d need a substantial reserve to implement this, but we went ahead anyway.
Pres Schill: “A third revenue source would be our endowment, but those accounts are almost all restricted and their value has fallen as a result of the stock market decline.”
Translation: We can’t use our endowment because those are restricted funds, and we only break gift agreements when the money comes from a professor giving it to the academic bucket. Athletic donations are sacred, particularly the $12M Jumbotron.
Pres Schill: “A fourth option would be to cut personnel costs, since almost 80 percent of our Education and General (E&G) budget is composed of salaries and benefits. This would be quite difficult since we operate at staffing ratios that are much lower than our peer schools and most salaries are set by collective bargaining agreements. … Last week Provost Phillips and Vice President Jamie Moffitt circulated a proposal for a progressive pay reduction (PPR) program that I realize may have surprised some of you.”
Translation: I threw Provost Banavar under the bus for last year’s budget crisis cuts. This time it’s worse, so I’m going to throw a Provost *and* a VP.
Pres Schill: “The reality is that we will need to do something to adjust expenses if enrollment declines significantly and/or we receive state budget cuts. Again, we are open to suggestions and collaborative approaches designed to solve the problem.”
Translation: Your opinions are not worth a damn thing, and whatever we do it will come from the secret meetings I’m now having with my Financial Continuity Team, just as the pay cut plan did.
Full letter below:
Dear University of Oregon community,
The COVID-19 crisis strikes at the heart of the University of Oregon’s mission. As a great residential university, we are grounded in the foundational notion that, by bringing people together in this amazing and special campus setting, we provide a world-class, transformative educational experience. That education takes place in our classrooms, labs, libraries, and studios. But it also takes place in serendipitous encounters in dining facilities, on our beautiful lawns, in our residence halls, and at our sporting events. In these various, unique settings our students learn what it means to be human in a society full of diverse people and perspectives. As we turn our attention to the fall and our long-term future we must always keep this mission in mind.
If you’re faculty, you can join the UAUO Faculty Union online here. You’ll be able to vote on the upcoming contract extension, etc. Dues are 1.1% of salary, because tanstaafl. If you’re faculty, staff, an OA, or even an executive administrator, you can vote in the Senate elections. The deadline…
4/24/2020 update: The median UO faculty makes about $70K a year. How many of them will have to lose their jobs to pay for these consultants? I don’t know, let’s find out: From: Bill Harbaugh <wtharbaugh@gmail.com> Subject: PR request for “Public Opinion Research” Date: April 24, 2020 at 5:14:03 PM…
I”m a big believer in free speech, but I’m not sure the twitter page of $5M Duck coach Mario Cristobal is going to convince many parents to send their kids to study at UO:
And a $100K raise if he goes back to the faculty. Full offer letter here.
4/23/2020:
Another year, another budget crisis, more questions about where UO’s money is going. I emailed VP Herman, who is charge of this project, on March 25th:
Hi Ellen,
I’m heard a rumor that the administration has abandoned or perhaps just delayed this effort. I’m hoping that you can provide some details on where this proposal currently stands. Thanks,
Bill Harbaugh
She didn’t answer, so on April 1st I filed a public record request. Yesterday I got this response:
Dear Mr. Harbaugh,
The University has searched for, but was unable to locate, records responsive to your request for “…a public record showing the current status of the Faculty tracking / Insights project”, made 4/1/2020.
It is the office’s understanding that this project has been placed on hold, however there are no records documenting this decision.
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, Office of Public Records
5/8/2019 update:
With the budget crisis, you’d think this proposal would be in the trash can. Apparently not.
3/18/2019 Faculty tracking software vendor explains time-suck & “thought leadership programming” junket
So why isn’t the provost’s office being clear about what this will cost?
Update: A few hours after I posted this a friend of the blog sent me UO’s blacklist, no charge. I have to say I’m disappointed in VP for StratComm Kyle Henley – the UOPD’s bowl of dicks list was far more creative. Speaking of that memorable episode, the Honorable Judge…
Sent out today. Full email here. More on the VP for EI’s excess cash problem here. The average faculty salary at UO is about $70K. Dear Colleagues: As a tenured faculty colleague who is currently teaching a course in our School of Law, I’ve experienced firsthand the panic of suddenly…
Apparently there’s some sort of virus going around. Bob Keefer has the news in the Eugene Weekly on what this means for the Artistic Director search etc. Apparently some sort of Track & Field event is also being postponed. No worries about football though, they’re still looking for a $825K…
In a notable departure from our university’s past efforts to hide basic information on how they are spending public funds, their made-up fee for this request is not a prime number:
Pres Schill offers faculty union a pay cut proposal and a threat: take it or suffer the consequences
The short version, from the union:
Executive Summary
The administration wants faculty to agree to a wage cut plan in the event of revenue loss. United Academics leadership has concerns about the proposal and would like to bargain the plan. If UA does not agree to the wage cut plan, the administration intends to either non-renew all 211 Career faculty who are up for renewal this spring or offer them only 0.1 FTE contracts. In order for a wage cut plan for faculty to go into effect, the membership of United Academics would have to vote in favor of the plan.
In a nutshell this plan would put the full cost of any tuition losses or state funding cuts on the faculty and OAs. There is no discussion of an offset for increases in federal funding, such as the $16m UO is getting from the CARES act. There is no discussion of cuts for Johnson Hall’s pet projects.
There is no accountability for the administration’s past decisions to spend down UO’s reserves on an Athlete’s Village for the 2021 Track & Field championships, on utility connections for Hayward field, on the Law School, on continued hidden athletic subsidies, etc, which led to the decrease in reserves and the increase in bond debt.
There is no provision for shared governance oversight of future spending.
The scheme is barely progressive – the cuts start at a very low $40K, and the top rate peaks at $200K, meaning those making say $400K pay the same percentage as those making $200K.
Amusingly, or perhaps I should say incompetently, whoever cooked this scheme up does not understand the difference between average and marginal – so after these cuts, an AVP now making say $199,999 would end up with a higher salary than one making $200,001. Under the middle scenario, the new salaries would be $178,819 and $176,000, or a $2,820 bigger cut for the poor soul who started out $2 ahead. This does not inspire confidence in our VPFA and VPBP’s ability to run our university’s finance and budgeting without supervision.
Here’s the schedule, with 5 scenarios and corresponding cuts, as calculated by the Administration:
The Administration’s full draft proposal is here. The Faculty Union’s full response is below.
OSU President (and Professor of Economics) Ed Ray explains how to manage a budget crisis: Dear OSU faculty, staff and students, I write regarding the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on Oregon State University, actions underway in response, and a financial future that remains unclear due to the uncertainty of…