3/28/2013: The NYT editorializes about the economic foundation of US law firms, the billable hour: For partners, billable hours are a key measure of associate and partner productivity. More is better. The resulting culture pushes everyone harder. Meanwhile, each partner strives to maximize individual client billings that he or she…
UO Matters
3/28/2013 update: SB 822, the Democratic response to the PERS cut proposals from Kitzhaber and the Republicans, has passed out of committee on a 3-2 vote. It is the weakest of the 3 proposals, and, according to the fiscal analysis, even it is enough to completely offset the “30% increase”…
3/28/2013: A column by Wicke Sloane, in Insidehighered, on the SEIU staff union’s research reports on conflicts of interest and administrative bloat at public universities: I commend the 5,000 higher education workers of the Massachusetts Service Employees International Union (SEIU), Local 615. These men and women, led by Massachusetts SEIU…
3/28/2013: From Insidehighered.com: Jonathan Hart was appointed professor of English and comparative literature at the University of Alberta in 2004. In 2011, he was also appointed professor of English studies at Durham University, in Britain. Neither was a part-time position, and it appears that neither institution knew about Professor Hart’s…
UO students respond to the Steubenville rapists: A million or so youtube downloads. Thanks to the ODE for the link.
From the Oregonian, 3/26/2013: “I’m not going to add any fuel to their fire,” she said. “My comments are not printable.” In other news, the Democrats have released their PERS reform plan: — Retirees would receive the current 2 percent increase on the first $20,000 of retirement income. The COLA…
3/25/2013: That’s the latest rumor from the faculty club sushi bar. The next hearing is Tuesday 3/26.
3/25/2013. It’s been brought to my attention that I’ve been a bit too loose with the “UO’s administrators are overpaid” meme. There are a lot of UO OA’s that are certainly not fattening up at the Johnson Hall trough, and I apologize for lumping them together. Today the Chronicle published…
3/25/2013: Let’s help UO’s VPFA (and former athletic department chief financial officer) Jamie Moffitt find the money to pay for the faculty raises in the Lariviere plan. Every 1% raise for the faculty (TTF and NTTF) costs UO about $910K. Add in the variable benefit costs and it’s about $1.15M.…
3/23/2013: The NCAA Academic Progress Rate is a measure of the progress to graduation of “student athletes”. Explanation here. The most recent Pac-12 median was 962. The APR for UO’s basketball team has been steadily falling and is now below the 930 rate that will be required for post-season play in…
Currently UO pays 12.21% into its defined contribution ORP for employees hired after 2003, and 22.14% for those before. That will increase to 12.41% and 26.9% in July. VPFA Jamie Moffitt told the faculty that we couldn’t get real raises because of these expected increases in the cost of retirement…
I’m trying a new system for comments, called Disqus, you’ve probably seen it on other blogs. It works now, but the last 2 days of comments are being transferred, and may not show up for a day or so. To comment you should create a free, anonymous Disqus account. It…
3/22/2013 updates at bottom. UO Board Oregon Senate hearings, at 1PM 3/21/2013. Background here, live feed here. The original architect of the independent board idea was Michael Redding, who is leaving UO any week now for UIC. So the ball is now in Mike Gottfredson’s court, as those sports boosters…
Venue: Room 122 Knight Library, 8AM, Thursday 3/21/2013. Postscript: Prologue: (Comparator gaps by dept here, what to cut here, Moffitt’s secret budget here.) You might have thought Michael Gottfredson would have asked Kitzhaber for authority to deal with UO’s faculty pay problem, before he agreed to take the UO president’s…
Updated with latest (last?) Beangram: March 20, 2013 TO: Officers of instruction, research and administrationFROM: Provost Jim BeanSUBJECT: Multi-year salary adjustment program update I am writing to provide an update regarding the multi-year salary adjustment program announced in my email of March 4, 2013. The University is moving forward…