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UO Matters

UO Foundation spends $13.5M on deadwood coaches – and GC Kevin Reed’s office continues to delay releasing public records

Severance payments to former coaches, from 2015 to present: Presumably the money came from Duck boosters who couldn’t think of a way to support UO’s academic mission, or just don’t care. I wonder if the Foundation and UO Development exempted these donations from their usual administrative and fundraising charges, as…

Duck coach Dana Altman finally decides on the right time and place to talk about #BlackLivesMatter

Dana in the Oregonian in 2014, after the killings of Michael Brown and Eric Garner: 12/10/2014: Coach Dana Altman thinks National Anthem is the wrong time to protest racism Our fool of a basketball coach thinks he owns those players. They shouldn’t protest when he’s trying to collect his $2M paycheck,…

Provost Phillips tells career faculty he will cut their FTE if they go for promotion

No, I’m not making this up. The Faculty Union’s email about it is here. Some snippets: The Price of Excellence Faculty who achieve promotion, whether they be tenure-track or Career, are supposed to earn job security and an increase in salary. By achieving promotion, these faculty have demonstrated their excellence…

Pres Schill’s Track & Field Championship construction boom adds $15M a year to UO costs, UO credit rating goes negative

In June 2015 UO projected that debt expense payments for 2021 would be about $43M a year: Now in June 2020 they are projecting debt expense payments for 2021 will be about $58M a year – a $15M increase: Why the increase? Mostly for 30 year bonds sold to build…

UO Administrators “Speaking out against hatred, racism, and violence”

They’re going to hold a workshop, some forums, and “potentially a course dedicated to examining structural barriers to racial equity in the COVID-19 era”. Some bragging about what they’ve done over the past 5 years. Maybe some more implicit bias training? No mention of holding more Jeffersonian Dinners with our…

Update: How to get the Student Experience Survey into Canvas

Important Note: Canvas “anonymous” surveys aren’t really anonymous — apparently it’s possible for faculty to identify submissions, though it takes a few steps of deliberate action! It’s therefore a good idea to do one of the following: (i) if using Canvas, be transparent about this flaw, but tell your students…

Committee formerly known as the Senate IAC to meet today at 3

Post-live blog: I zoomed in for most of this. The most real part was Rob Mullens talking about possible NCAA cost-cutting measures. Cutting student-athlete scholarships was on the list, reducing the number of assistant coaches was not. 5/23/2020: The Senate turned this committee over to the President’s office back in…

Senate de-names covid financial planning task force over shared governance theater concerns

The decisions about UO’s financial and academic response to the coronavirus and its long term consequences are being made by Pres Mike Schill, Provost Patrick Phillips, BoT Secretary Angela Wilhems, VPBP Brad Shelton, CAS Dean Bruce Blonigen, and VPFA Jamie Moffitt in secret. The idea that they would use this…