From the Chronicle of Higher Ed, here: The University of Alaska’s president, James R. Johnsen, announced on Friday that he had withdrawn his candidacy for president of the University of Wisconsin system following growing criticism of his record in Alaska and of Wisconsin’s search, which named him its only finalist.…
Posts tagged as “Angela Wilhelms”
Just kidding. Our Trustees rely on Angela Wilhelms to spoon-feed them their agenda, and these data will not be on the menu for their June 4 meeting: They have hired a consultant to explain this to them though:
Our Trustees will meet again on June 4th by Zoom, presumably to approve another $12M Jumbotron for Uncle Phil. Meanwhile, The Daily Emerald has the story on Governor Kate Brown’s nomination of current OHSU VP for Administration and Board Secretary Connie Seeley as the latest UO Trustee, here: Seeley graduated…
This was one of the small pro-transparency changes she agreed to make – only after the Governor’s office, the Senate, faculty union, and some legislators pushed back on the secrecy and lack of input regarding recent board appointments. She has also added website tab that gives some brief info about…
That would be a replacement for Provost Jim Bean of Northeastern. Bean was formerly UO B-school dean, then interim provost under Lariviere. He left UO after Rob Kyr and the UO Senate made it clear we would not accept him as UO President. The students abandoned him after a timely…
3/2/2015 update: No word on whether or not BOT Secretary Angela Wilhelm will tear down that wall of PR flack tables separating the Trustees from the university community during this Thursday and Friday’s meetings, but it’s a good sign that 20 months into their term in office, the Board is willing to meet with faculty. I’m on the list, so Wilhelm’s assistant Amanda Hatch can’t have been screening people too carefully:
MEMORANDUM
March 3, 2015
TO: Individuals Attending Faculty/Trustee Discussions
FROM: Susan Gary, Faculty Trustee
RE: Thoughts on the March 6 Discussions
Thank you for your willingness and interest in participating in the discussions with UO trustees this
Friday, March 6, at 8:00 AM. These conversations will give the trustees a great opportunity to learn
more about the faculty – what we do, our strengths and the challenges we face. I thought it would be
helpful to provide some ideas about conversation topics, although these are not restrictive. You should
feel free to discuss any issues of concern to you, and the trustees may have questions they want to ask.
The conversations will evolve, as conversations do.
Our initial target size was 10 faculty members and three trustees per group. Given the number of
people who expressed interest, we can accommodate everyone if we increase the group size to 11, so
that is what we have decided to do. I think 11 should be fine; if you would prefer to wait until June (we
plan to have more discussions then), please let Amanda Hatch know and we can save your information.
The trustees will want to hear from everyone, so please be courteous with respect to time so that
everyone can have a chance to speak. It’s a conversation, so multiple short comments will likely be
better than one long comment per person.
Here are suggested topics for discussion that I brainstormed. I use “faculty” to include both TTF and
NTTF because most topics apply to both, although sometimes in different ways.
Faculty classifications.
– What do the classifications of faculty as TTF and NTTF – mean? (and NTRF and Library faculty if
someone can speak to those categories)
– What roles do different faculty members play?
–
– What is the promotion process like for TTF and NTTF?
Teaching.
– What contributes to teaching excellence?
– How much work goes into preparing a class?
– How do teachers keep their classes fresh?
– How does the Teaching Effectiveness Program work with faculty to improve teaching? (Have you
taken advantage of TEP and what has been the benefit?)
– How does research contribute to teaching?
– What are classroom conditions like – technology, class size, and configuration of classrooms?
– How do negative factors hinder teaching excellence – increases in class size, increased teaching
load?
Service.
– What kind of University and unit service do faculty do?
– What is the service work load and what types of service work do faculty do (admissions,
scholarships, curriculum, hiring, promotion and tenure, etc.)
– How does the level of service required affect teaching and scholarship?
Mentoring.
– How do faculty mentor students?
– Undergraduates? What kind of mentoring do undergrads need? What are the
challenges/rewards of mentoring undergrads?
– Graduate students? What is the relationship between an advisor and a
candidate? How does advising a grad student work?
– How do faculty help students think about career options?
Research.
– What is the role of research for a TTF?
– What is the grant writing process like?
– What is the publication process like?
Masters or Ph.D.
– What synergies exist among the research, teaching and service obligations of faculty members?
– (Note: There is a lot to say about research, but this is an area the trustees have already had
some exposure to, so it may be good to focus on other topics.)
Unit structure.
– How do TTF and NTTF interact within units?
– How do units govern themselves?
University Senate.
– What role does the Senate play? What role should the Senate play?
– Do faculty feel engaged with the Senate?
Online education.
This probably deserves a separate discussion when issues can be discussed more thoroughly – there is a
lot of work needed to develop a strategy – but someone may have particular insights to share.
2/25/2015 update: Ron Bramhall (Business) and faculty union VP for NTTFs, persuades the BOT’s sole Faculty Trustee, Susan Gary (Law), to invite NTTFs to meetings with Board members:
While these are much more complete than in the past, and while the Board has helpfully abandoned its previous strategy of holding meetings when the students are away on break, Secretary Angela Wilhelms has pre-redacted some of the most potentially interesting info from the agenda (docket) links, saying it’s not…
6/23/2015 update: Oregon Law says: PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES WITH A GOVERNING BOARD 352.025 Legislative findings. (1) The Legislative Assembly finds that the State of Oregon will benefit from having public universities with governing boards that: (a) Provide transparency, public accountability and support for the university. (b) Are close to and…
“The materials for this portion of the agenda are not yet complete”. The meeting is Monday at 3PM, Room 402 in the Alumni Center. BOT Secretary Angela Wilhelms has done her best to evade the intent of public meetings law a few times before, this is getting pretty shameless. Coltrane…
2/5/2015 update: A reader passes along this Brad Shelton powerpoint, which among other things documents the $1.5M Moffitt to Moffitt transfer: The bottom line though, is that there’s plenty of water in the well. Or at least that’s what Brad Shelton was telling UO’s academic deans in September: I wonder…
Job ad here. Rumor has it that Board Secretary Angela Wilhelms wants a Chuck Triplett type, who will keep her and Chairman Chuck Lillis informed about exactly what UO’s President is up to: Title: Senior Executive Assistant The University of Oregon seeks applications for the Senior Executive Assistant for the Office…
12/14/2014: Video of the Senate meeting is now available:
12/10/2014 PM update:
Alexandra Wallachly from the Emerald has posted a report on the meeting, here.
On the Board meeting Thursday: I think it’s important to show up at the Board meeting Thursday at 8AM in the Alumni Center. While the board has backed off on the latest power grab, there’s plenty of potential for surprises, those making public comments deserve some supporters, and it’s important that the Board sees that the faculty take what’s been happening very seriously. And I hear someone will be passing out “Save our Senate” buttons.
On the Senate meeting today: I got there at the very end. I’d love it if someone would send me some notes or post them. People tell me it was standing room only, and filled with dismay and outrage over what’s going on with our administration.
The Senate passed an amended version of the motion below, opposing the Triplett/Park power grab. The fact that they did this even after Coltrane announced the Board would withdraw the motion at his suggestion shows how deep the mistrust of Johnson Hall has become. Coltrane and Bronet need to take charge of that snake-pit, decisively and soon.
The Senate then apparently wrote and approved a second motion, directing the Academic Integrity Task Force to investigate the administration’s “alleged plans to establish groundwork for disciplinary procedures” against Philosophy Dept Chair Bonnie Mann and other faculty who refused to issue “fraudulent” grades. Apparently there is also an accusation that a CAS administrator not only gave out grades for courses, but then raised them after students complained. I don’t know if the TAIF will also investigate that.
I’ll post the video when available, and I expect the motions (passed unanimously?) will be on the Senate website soon, here. Meanwhile check Try Bree Nicolello’s twitter reports on the meeting: https://twitter.com/breenicolello.
12/10/2014 update: (see below for Coltrane response)
Sorry, I’m at the Board committee meetings, no live-blog.