UO’s PR flacks are making our university, our new interim President, and our new board of trustees look ridiculous, and we cannot afford to look any more ridiculous. Tyson Alger in the Oregonian: EUGENE — The University of Oregon has responded to its alumni regarding a KATU story that ran Monday…
UO Matters
Here. For a sense of our administration’s real priorities – getting a bowl game junket – check here.
Update: Troy Brynelson and Alex Cremer make it criminally plain, in the ODE: The University of Oregon purposely delayed the expulsion of three basketball players in order to preserve its academic standing with the NCAA and financial incentives for members of the athletic department, according to an exhaustive investigative piece from…
9/8/2014 update: This SF firm does anti-union work for employers and billed UO quite a bit during Berdahl and Gottfredson’s attempts to fight the faculty union. Lately they’ve turned to the presumably lucrative business of running workshops about sexual harassment and Title IX training, taught by, of all people, former UO GC Emerita Melinda Grier. A few months ago they even added Grier to the firm, as “Of Counsel”:
But now she’s been dropped. No word yet if they are still billing UO $25K or so a month:
6/18/2014: Melinda Grier, HLGR, Rudnick, Matthews making bank off UO legal fees
It looks like many other firms are getting some action from Randy Geller too. Here’s April and May, full dump here:
Oregon is paying VP for Research Brad Shelton (a former UO math prof) $304K to manage UO’s $97M research budget. Four years ago we paid Rich Linton $185K. For comparison, Michigan State is paying Steve Hsu (a former UO physics prof) $277K to manage MSU’s $330M research budget. (Last year’s…
In 2004, UO’s Athletics Task Force Report called for the Duck athletic department to start making payments to help with UO’s academic mission. It never happened. In fact, a few years later Frohnmayer, Kilkenny, and Knight made a series of secret agreements that left the academic side holding the bag…
Dear Colleagues,In the past few weeks, the University of Oregon has successfully transitioned to a new executive leadership team. As interim president and acting provost, we are incredibly grateful to our stellar team of vice presidents, deans, vice provosts, the university, and the community for supporting this transition and helping…
Last year’s retreat was quite informative. The live-blog is here, highlights: when Provost Coltrane and his VP for Finance Jamie Moffitt reveal that UO’s well is far from dry, so long as you’re talking bond sales or administrative pork rather than faculty raises, and when VP for Development Mike Andreassen makes…
9/3/2014 update: Apparently the administration tried to keep this year’s list secret too – even from faculty serving the on relevant tenure committees. Bizarre. Keep these “secret” documents coming, I’m happy to post them. 9/2/2014: Curious about who got tenure and promotions this year? Here’s the list. In the past…
Diane Dietz has the story in the RG. UO currently spends about $1.2M subsidizing the men’s and women’s golf teams. I thought the idea to build them a special golf course had died, but it’s back, still without any faculty review of the budget etc. Presumably the developers’ business model…
9/1/2014: Diane Dietz has the report in the RG:
The university is floating a proposal to hire a “cluster” of three new professors to rebuild the classical genetics and genomics program at the University of Oregon and to launch a Center for Genome Function. … “You could think of it as re-establishing our eminence in this field,” said Eric Selker, whose work in epigenetics mirrors fundamental genetics research.
Researchers are likely to find out beginning this fall whether donors are ready to help with their cluster proposals.
The UO’s success in genetics in the 1960s and ’70s was built on just such a “cluster hire” as the university now contemplates, [Frank] Stahl said.
8/24/2014: Systems biology cluster hire proposal
Diane Dietz has the report on a real cluster of excellence proposal:
Last year Mullens paid Nicholls State $450K for the same job, Sam Stites report in the RG here.
That would be at Chicago State University. Apparently the president fired a university attorney who refused to go along with an attempt to hide public records. This would never happen at the University of Oregon. A new judge has just affirmed the verdict against the president and board of trustees,…