8/19/2010: UO has failed to make the Sierra Clubs list of America’s 162 greenest campuses, a.k.a. “Cool Schools”. (The Dog comments that it’s likely no one at UO bothered to complete the survey). Obviously we will now need to further increase administrative spending on sustainability. Or not – Scott Carlson…
UO Matters
8/18/2010: We expect that new AD Rob Mullens will release some honest accounting of the athletic department budget soon. Maybe. Insidehighered.com reports: Yet again, nearly every Division I athletics program spent more than it made last year. And at a time when many are feeling pressure to achieve self-sufficiency, these…
8/18/2010: At some point college athletics, which is almost entirely driven by the profits earned by the football team, is going to have to deal with this issue. Fortunately the coaches are earning enough money to pay for long term care insurance for their players. Will they?
8/17/2010: We’ve reported before on the fact that UO spends 96% of the public research university average on Central Administration, versus only 63% on research. Insidehighered.com discusses several studies of the general trend: “Administrative bloat” is the cause of rising costs in American higher education, according to a report being…
8/16/2010: Good story on out of state students at UO, from Bill Graves in the Oregonian: … The California students are like gold to Oregon universities because they pay triple the tuition charged to resident students. At UO, a full-time out-of-state student will pay $25,830 in tuition and fees next…
8/15/2010: George Schroeder of the RG has a story on new AD Rob Mullens, he starts work Monday, 2 weeks early. And the RG Editorial Board gives him a lengthy To Do list, including: 3. Get your staff in order. The athletic department’s current administration is a hodgepodge from the…
8/15/2010: Ted Sickinger of the Oregonian has a long story on PERS and the prospects for reforms, with very specific discussions of the costs and benefits of various reform proposals.
8/14/2010: German rich guy questions the logic. From Der Spiegel: Peter Krämer, a Hamburg-based shipping magnate and multimillionaire, has emerged as one of the strongest critics of the “Giving Pledge.” Krämer, who donated millions of euros in 2005 to “Schools for Africa,” a program operated by UNICEF, explained his opposition…
8/14/2010: Steve Duin has an interesting column on Masoli in the Oregonian today.
8/12/2010: When John Moseley and Lorraine Davis retired, then President Dave Frohnmayer wrote them extraordinary golden parachute contracts to take advantage of the PERS system. UO paid them half time for 5 years – Moseley for running UO-Bend from his Deschutes fishing lodge, and Davis doing the odd administrative job,…
8/11/2010: there is a sign that UO is moving towards being a normal public institution acting more or less for the public good, with decisions made in the open, on the basis of rules and some sense of shared purpose and central direction. But then I’m always an optimist.
8/11/2010: Interesting article in the Chronicle on the increasing role of the Gates Foundation in higher ed issues. Not everyone welcomes them: Diane Ravitch, in a chapter of her recent book, Death and Life of the Great American School System, takes aim at Gates and other business tycoons’ foundations. “Education,”…
8/10/2010: Ryan Buckley of the Daily Emerald has an article on an all-volunteer program some UO faculty started to encourage local low-SES students to go to college. KEZI has a brief clip on President Larviere’s talk at the camp, here. Mark Baker had an earlier article on this in the…
8/10/2010: Greg Bolt of the RG has an article on the Jock Box, based on the cost estimates the Oregonian obtained from UO with a public records request. The article does not explain how the tax-deductibility of this sort of donation means that regular taxpayers picked up about half the…
8/9/2010: The Chronicle and several other papers quote Senate Pres Nathan Tublitz on the Jock Box: Cost of U. of Oregon’s New Center for Athletes Draws New Debate Over Priorities The $41.7-million cost of the University of Oregon’s new academic center for athletes prices out to more than $1,000 per…