UO Matters

From FIRE: SEATTLE, July 13, 2022 — When Professor Stuart Reges challenged the University of Washington’s position on land acknowledgements, administrators punished him, undermining his academic freedom. Today, backed by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, Reges sued the university to vindicate his First Amendment right to express his opinion —…

Is it normal for host countries to use international track meets to show off their military hardware? From the World Athletics press release: On opening night on Friday, July 15, a flyover will take place when the session kicks off at 5 p.m. On Saturday night, there will be an…

Or as they call it in Johnson Hall, the “University Tower“. Ken Goe has the story in the Oregonian, mostly about why the thing is so damn large. OK, it’s mostly about the lousy seating: https://www.oregonlive.com/oregon22/2022/07/goe-new-hayward-field-site-of-world-athletics-championships-oregon22-is-big-on-flash-but-short-on-function.html

Thanks to an alert alumnus for the link. As the story notes UO is not the only university involved in this deceptive scam: … Christina Denkinger wanted something new after 14 years as an elementary-school teacher in Portland, Ore. After shopping around for a course in data analytics last fall,…

Governor Brown spent $40M in state money for this? I like how they cropped out the Phildo and photoshopped in some fall foliage:

No word on the rumors all employees will be required to undergo 23andme DNA tracing to help us complete this form accurately. Strangely, there is no option for you change your “legal sex”.

From Around the 0: Bruce Blonigen, currently the interim Tykeson Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, will take the helm of the Lundquist College of Business beginning July 15, serving a two-year appointment as dean. The current dean, Sarah Nutter, has decided to return to the faculty after…

The authoritative Teen Vogue has the take here. A snippet: … The Supreme Court’s intention to overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark abortion legislation that has been law for almost 50 years, will transform so many aspects of daily life in the United States. One will likely be college enrollments. Young people…

UO’s Board of Trustees loves to blame our low faculty pay and constant tuition increases on underfunding by our state government. That is no longer true. I wonder who they’ll blame next? Here’s some data from SHEEO’s latest “State Effort Report”. The median state is Washington, Oregon is 2 spots…

Full post with links here. We are thrilled to announce that we have arrived at a tentative agreement with the administration on our CBA, completing this round of negotiations!  Here are some highlights: We negotiated a raise package and got it implemented January 1, 2022, bringing that benefit to faculty…

Why can’t we be good at both? Because Portland and Eugene don’t have fluoridated water. Nigel Jaquiss has the story here. We’ve legalized shrooms but not fluoride? Anyone know the backstory on that?

This is getting ridiculous. UO needs an effective DEI office. But Schill and Phillips are too scared to fire VP Alex-Assensoh, so they are keeping her and hiring someone else to do her job for her. Fortunately that will only take 0.5 FTE:

After years of overpromised and underdelivered crap like Jim Bean’s “5 Big Ideas”, UO finally has an administrative team with the smarts, energy, and enough credibility with donors and faculty to actually do new things. I like to bitch as much as the next professor, and plenty of reasonable people…

I’m sure this purposefully brain-damaged “IDEAL” climate survey will provide endless busy work for DEI VP Alex-Assensoh and her staff. Might even have to hire some more. UO could have used Harvard’s COACHE survey for about $200K less than Gallup charged, but that would have meant having results that could…