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UO Matters

Provost’s Faculty Tracking Software to be just like Concur, but for Tenure and Promotion

What could go wrong? You’d think that after disasters like Concur, shared services, centralized purchasing, and Commencement, our Johnson Hall leadership would step back for a moment and think about what they’re trying to do. Nope. As a wise women once sang, I ain’t no psychiatrist, I ain’t no doctor…

Provost Woodruff-Borden and CAS Dean Chris Poulsen wrapping up illegal search for new Clark Honors College Dean

Back in 2020, the Senate concluded years of negotiations with UO President Mike Schill and got him to sign this policy giving the Senate and the Faculty a little bit of say in searches for Dean’s, etc. It requires that the Senate Leadership be consulted about the search and search…

GTFF bargains for real raises

Thanks to CSN for this report: While faculty and admins work out how to distribute the 2% merit raise pool for faculty next year, the GTFF’s bargaining committee seem to have figured out how to count to numbers with two digits. Their proposal (https://drive.google.com/file/d/13dsgHLsobBa0raCSVxNzYG6pRvot8dnR/view) asks for a 30% increase to the…

CAS Dean Poulsen takes bold, decisive action to rebrand Diversity Action Plans as Climate Action Plans

Johnson Hall pissed $350K away on the climate survey. Now, a full year after they got the results, they’re passing the buck for their failed management down to the deans, who are going to … yes, we all know the drill: Dear colleagues,  I am writing to update you on…

Smug Interim Provost tries to distract her underpaid faculty colleagues by “fostering their sense of belonging”

Having had to listen to our smarmy Provost talk and talk through many meetings, I’m willing to bet this is her own creation, not the work of ChatGPT. Presumably she took it straight from the cover letter for her next presidential search application, which we hope will be a successful…

Small minded sports columnist mocks State Rep Janelle Bynum for her courageous stand against drunken sports fans

I for one salute the Honorable Representative from Clackamas for attempting to holding Rob Mullens and his coaches feet to the fire on what is surely the most egregious problem in college sports. This is just the sort of legislation that restores my faith in the ability of government –…

Provost and Trustees kick back in glee as faculty fight it out over who gets the smallest merit pay cut.

Do the math. Faculty are getting 10% in raises over 3 years, during which the cost of living will have increased by roughly 20%. (Ignore former Interim President Phillip’s claim to the Senate that temporary inflation does not cause permanent increases in the cost of living, he’s no more of…

UO Administration loses their “strategic thought partner”, will replace her with ChatGPT

Dear colleagues, I am writing to let you know that Richie Hunter, vice president for university communications, will be leaving the University of Oregon to take the role of vice president for communications at the University of Michigan. While Richie finalized this decision over the last few weeks, she deferred…

UO Board appoints competent outsider as new President – John Karl Scholz from UW-Madison

That would be John Karl Scholz, most recently Provost at UW-Madison. [Full disclosure: Scholz was one of my professors when I got my PhD there in 1995, where he was also Director of the Institute for Poverty Research. I liked him a lot, despite the fact I barely passed the…

Despite SVB, former UO Board Chair Chuck Lillis still holds record for largest US bank failure

I’m no macroeconomist, but all signs are that the FDIC will quickly arrange a sale of Silicon Valley Bank and contain the contagion, in no small part due to the lessons learned from the 2008 collapse of Washington Mutual, which was one of the precursors to the Great Recession. UO…

CAS Dean Chris Poulsen asks you not to forward his commencement email to your students

Dear CAS Leadership,  The CAS Commencement Advisory Group, UO Student Life and CAS Leadership have come together to determine how best to develop our commencement programs in the absence of individual department ceremonies. We have now confirmed many of the details of our June commencement events and we’d like to…