It’s early days, and some may see this report from the faculty union as alarmist.
On the other hand it’s important faculty understand what the administration is thinking, and you can’t count on VP for Strategic Communications Kyle Henley to communicate the administration’s strategic thinking on Around the O.
Executive Summary: Officers of United Academics met with senior administrators to discuss current and future efforts to respond to COVID-19. We pushed admin to make a commitment to the Career faculty who could lose their jobs in the near future. The administration did not make any commitments.
Intro Macroeconomics: To turn a recession into a depression, cut government jobs: From: CAS Dean <[email protected]> Date: March 20, 2020 at 10:57:13 PDT To: “[email protected]” <[email protected]>, “[email protected]” <[email protected]> Subject: cas-heads: Notifications of renewal and nonrenewal to career faculty Dear heads and managers, This is a reminder that the May 1…
Just kidding, I haven’t heard a peep from Weinhold lately, he’s busy running a bank on the side. In any case he already promised the endowment to the IAAF to get the Track & Field Championships. The academic side can sink or swim. Here’s Weinhold telling IAAF President Lamine Diack…
To quote an anonymous Duck PR flack, who’s taken up The Phildo meme with enthusiasm. “Mounting of crown on tower at Hayward Field sets in motion installation of graphics honoringUO greats and inspiring the next generation of university excellence.”
Obviously this and next fall will be devastating to UO. And obviously there will be huge amounts of cash flowing from the feds to the states, and UO will get a share of it. How big a share? Well that will depend on lobbying – and the Trustees ridiculous decision…
It’s a long story, and doesn’t have a very happy ending: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/18/magazine/title-ix-sexual-harassment-accusations.html What would be different if the accused faculty were at UO, instead of ASU? For one thing the case would probably still be dragging on. ASU closed this within a month. UO’s Office of Investigations Civil Rights Compliance…
UO – meaning mostly CAS – has been subsidizing our money pit of a law school since Michael Moffitt’s “business school case-study dream” turned out to be a scam. Today UO’s Trustees let them raise tuition – but instead of paying back their debt they’re going to use it to…
Dear students, faculty, staff and community members, The coronavirus outbreak has created unprecedented challenges for the University of Oregon, our state, and the nation. As we work to respond to this quickly-changing situation, our first priority is the health and safety of our students, faculty, and staff. As part of…
When we hope it will be safe. In any case we’re preparing. Reporter Makenzie Elliott has the story on SAIL in the Emerald here. The intro: … The SAIL website is here. If your department doesn’t yet run a camp, there’s info there on starting one. The staff is *very*…
Mighty generous of President Schill, spending other people’s money. Altman’s multi-million dollar contract is here. It seems GC Kevin Reed forgot to include a Force Majeure clause. You can’t make this shit up: Meanwhile, But then when have Duck coaches ever sacrificed anything? From this year’s State Employees Charitable Fund…
Under the latest PERS reform, UO now has to pay into PERS for administrators like Brad Shelton and Lorraine Davis (yes, of course Lorraine’s still on the payroll) who are double dipping on salary and retirement. That change applies to faculty as well, substantially increasing the benefit to UO from getting older Tier 1 faculty to retire outright, rather than go on reduced FTE assignments.
You’d think the administration would recognize this, but instead they want to reduce faculty incentives to retire. Weird. The message from the union bargaining team today:
UA wants you to control your plans for retirement.
Executive Summary:
The administration presented their retirement/buyout proposal. It would give the administration complete control over when faculty could be bought out.
Bargaining is suspended for the foreseeable future. The UA office is closed until at least Monday, March 30. Officers and staff are working remotely and continue to be available at [email protected].
3/16/2020: N0 liveblog since meeting is closed to visitors, live-streaming is failing. I showed up at Ford Alumni this morning and was told the Board has banned all visitors from the room – no advance notice and no mention on the Board’s website. The last time I got kicked out…
3/15/2020: Interviewed by Andrew Theen for the Oregonian on 3/13:
3/13/2020:
The March 10th email to UO from Prof’s Graboyes, Burlando, and Redaelli (below the break) was prescient, and they’ve been quoted in the WSJ etc. Here is their update from Belluno in northern Italy. They note:
In the Italian town of Vo, which was an early hotspot for coronavirus 95% of the city’s residents were tested. Among the 3% who were positive for the disease, the vast majority had no symptoms. Had those people continued going around town, attending to their normal work and personal life activities, each positive person would have caused between 2-3 new people to become infected.
Hence the social distancing – the government has even postponed the Giro D’Italia. Click here for video from 1940 of Coppi v. Bartali. Fausto wins! UO’s coronavirus resource page is here.
New Letter:
March 12, 2020
We are three University of Oregon professors currently based in Northern Italy where the COVID-19 outbreak is raging. We are writing to alert residents of our home state to the public health emergency that is unfolding here in Italy and to raise the alarm about the limited window of time Oregonians have to prepare. We have 4 suggestions for how Oregonians should be preparing and responding–primarily through practicing rigorous social distancing and widespread closures of schools and activities–and call on all citizens to demand more widespread testing of suspected coronavirus cases.