6/11/2009: One thing that will inevitably come up when discussing the fact that UO’s pay is last in the AAU and 10% below that of Missouri is benefits. Administrators claim that UO’s benefits are better than average. What they really mean is that UO pays more for benefits than other…
UO Matters
6/10/2009: Update on Frohnmayer’s Foundation slush fund: Apparently he has been in a mad rush to spend $1 million in leftover money as quick as possible. Anyone with details, post a comment. We’re guessing this money is not going to Faculty!Provost Bean has now selected UO’s next “Big Ideas” which…
6/8/2009: After a year on the job Provost Jim Bean discovers – from a news article in a Missouri student newspaper we posted here – that UO’s faculty are the lowest paid in the AAU. This is after he wasted a huge chunk of IR and Senate time trying to…
6/5/2009: UO’s Under-represented Minority Recruitment Plan or UMRP gives $90,000 to departments that hire faculty who self-report as racial or ethnic minorities. What do those faculty spend this money on? Here is a link to the accounting statement for one history professor’s UMRP account. He took $62,000 as supplemental summer…
6/2/2009: OSLC has now released its latest IRS form. Page 20 shows that UO Diversity VP Charles Martinez has continued with his second job there, working 25 hours per week off campus – I think this makes 3 straight years, ranging from 25 to 29 hours per weak. This blows…
The Daily Emerald has been doing good reporting about UO politics again. So far it hasn’t risen to the standard of Ryan Knutson’s Bernsteinian investigative pieces on the arena, but reporter Alex Tomchak Scott seems to know how to do an interview. See this story on the UO Senate’s version…
UO has now posted a job announcement for the new VP for Planning and Budget. Provost Bean created this position because VP for Finance Frances Dyke hasn’t been able to figure out a new budget model for UO, and just does not understand UO’s actual financial position. This was convincingly…
6/3/2009:Quoting from this story from Missouri: A recently released study done by the American Association of University Professors reports University of Missouri salaries for professors ranked second to last out of 34 public institutions studied, ahead of only the University of Oregon. How far is Oregon behind Missouri? According to…
Nathan Tublitz will be Senate President for 2010-2011. This email from current President Paul van Donkelaar explains the situation: Dear Colleagues: I write to let you know that I have heard a number of concerns regarding the manner by which the election process for Senate vice-president was postponed until the…
6/1/2009: ODE reporter Alex Tomchak Scott reported that the Senate has decided Tublitz did win the ballot and will be President after Gilkey. Story here. The alternative candidate does not have tenure and in our view a Senate president without tenure would be too beholden to the administration and unable…
5/31/2009: Greg Bolt has an article in the RG on overcomittment problems at UO. He mentions Edward Kame’enui’s $400,000 from Reading First, but not the $200,000 of UO money Melinda Grier spent lobbying the congressional committee (one invoice here) to get that investigation closed. Or so the timeline suggests. Charles…
5/30/2009:Daily Emerald article says that at the 5/27 UO Senate meeting President Paul van Donkelaar decided after he knew the outcome of the voting for the 2010-2011 Senate President that there was no quorum and that the vote would be done over in October. The obvious interpretation is that Nathan…
5/29/2009:A few days ago we got a knowledgeable comment on our claim that the number of senior administrators was increasing. It said we were exaggerating: “this sure looks like a one-for-one replacement, distracting us from the more serious issues of the huge growth in Associate VPs, support staff, and so…
5/27/2009: This Daily Emerald story by Ben Schorzman challenges the frequent claim that UO’s Athletic Department is self-supporting. It turns out the state gives the Ducks $1.2 million in lottery money every year. If that money went to academics, athletics would be in the red. It’s a pretty interesting read.…
5/24/2009: In 2006 UO Provost John Moseley retired and was given a 1/2 time $124,000 a year sinecure as Director of UO’s Bend Programs. He wanted this because it allowed him to pad his PERS account and because he has a vacation home on the Deschutes. It turns out he’s…