3/17/2011: From the popular Portland blog, Bojack.org. One of his readers passed on an email, ostensibly from Gerry Williams, the chair of the Oregon Seismic Safety Policy Advisory Commission, which ended with this: An initiative passed several years ago mandates all schools be upgraded in Oregon by 2032, a two…
UO Matters
3/16/2011: If these people are going to be carrying guns on campus, their qualifications should be in plain view. So 6 weeks ago I asked for the cover letters and resumes for UO’s current Public Safety Director and his two predecessors. Denied. It took more than a month, and a…
3/14/2011: Greg Bolt covers the athlete only parking lot story for the RG. Not bad. Someday our local paper of record may even get around to asking Provost Jim Bean why he is still insisting regular UO students must pay for the athlete only tutoring in the Jock Box. $2…
3/14/2011: I’ve been trying to figure out Chancellor Pernsteiner’s OUS contract. Is it possible the $23,320 for “Professional expenses” is for tuition payments, so he can finally get that PhD? Seems a bit high for the University of Phoenix, but I haven’t heard a better explanation. So I made a…
3/14/2011: From the Chronicle, “Flagships just want to be left alone”: … “In all cases, the issue is about money, power, and control,” Mr. Lombardi wrote in an e-mail. “It’s no surprise,” he added, “that the main campuses of many systems now look to leave their systems in the hopes…
3/11/2011: The first thing the student newspaper wants to know about Doug Tripp and Ed Rinne’s $50,499 proposal for a bomb-sniffing dog is if it will know how to sniff out drugs too: “There are no thoughts, ideas or plans on ever obtaining a drug dog; but having an Explosives…
3/10/2011: Dave Frohnmayer, that is. Here’s his contract with Nike’s Howard Slusher, requiring UO to provide athlete only parking, in return for them taking the Jock Box land from us for $1. On top of this students pay $2 million a year to run it. Phil Knight’s deal with UO…
3/10/2011: Rachel Bachman of the Oregonian has a story on Ethics Point. They contract to state agencies, including OUS, to allow employees to make anonymous reports about financial improprieties. I’ve used this with mixed success. The reports are forwarded to OUS auditor Pat Snopkowski, but she often sits on them…
3/10/2011: That’s progress. The tuition cap helped. They are still very suspicious of Lariviere. But their reporters have to deal with Liz Denecke and a press office that limits who will talk to them about what, so no wonder.
3/9/2011: This Colton Totland story in the ODE was news to me: For the first time in state history, a handful of concerned Oregon state representatives are sponsoring two bills aimed at limiting campaign contributions. Last year, Oregon spent more per person on political campaigns than any other state except…
3/9/2011: The ASUO Senate did not come up with the 2/3 vote margin to defeat the veto by Amelie Rousseau of a budget w/o OSPIRG funding. As I understand it they will now try and renegotiate their subsidies to the athletic department and LTD to come up with the OSPIRG…
3/9/2011: Comments are heavily in favor of the surplus office and some obscure but important sounding A/R thing. Also support for a dedicated staff training room. Makes sense. Then for video conferencing for central admin – doesn’t everyone use skype for that? Here’s one on the Diversity police academy idea:…
3/8/2011: The RG has an editorial that reads like a wake for the New Partnership plan: President Richard Lariviere’s proposal to fund the University of Oregon’s operations with a public-private endowment is going nowhere in Salem, even after he offered to include a cap on tuition increases as part of…
3/8/2011: I’ve been trying to figure out Chancellor Pernsteiner’s OUS contract. Not the $70K a year Treetops mansion and additional $26K housing allowance – that’s just stupidity and greed, respectively. But what about the $23,320 for “Professional expenses”? Is it possible this is for tuition payments, so he can finally…
3/7/2011: This will apparently hit the papers tomorrow.