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…
UO Matters
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…
5/22/2009: We’ve been wondering what happened to the voluntary Fourlough program. After a lot of publicity and the hyped town hall meeting, the web site was never updated with new information or the promised FAQ. We finally received the email below on 5/20 from Provost Bean. In it he makes…
5/20/2009: Interesting NYT story about how public records requests from an american freelance reporter have lead to the resignation of the speaker of the UK Parliament, because of his efforts to hide public records about second home expenses. It’s an open secret that UO has swallowed the million dollar Bend…
5/19/2009: This letter in the Daily Emerald from an apparently well-informed student provides firm evidence that President Frohnmayer will soon have to give up on the Autzen “O” effort – he is just struggling not to withdraw from his position prematurely. At the 4/14 furlough meeting President Frohnmayer and Provost…
5/15/2009: “So the bullies have won.” The Register Guard Editors. The RG takes UO President Dave Frohnmayer to task for failing to defend Professor Sohlberg from the mob that was incited by this RG story on the O sign. The RG Editors can’t bring themselves to criticize Dave by name,…
5/14/2009: At yesterday’s UO Senate meeting Provost Bean spent a long time talking about “misinformation spread by blogs.” We are happy to hear he’s been reading UO Matters, and we welcome his response to our comments on his speech: He refused to repudiate his Furlough meeting claim that UO’s Admin…
5/11/2009: We missed last week’s Assembly meeting. Peter Gilkey has posted a lot of data here. Essentially after a lot of wrangling, motions were made and adopted that the faculty delegate the faculty’s statutory powers to the University Senate and that the faculty ratify all past acts of the University…