Tag Archives: Barbara Altmann

Susan Anderson to replace Barbara Altmann as co-SVP for Academic Affairs

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Around the 0 has the excellent news, here. In a welcome break from past practice, the report by UO spokesperson Julie Brown doesn’t ignore Anderson’s union work, and includes this quote:

“Her experience as an accomplished humanities researcher, department head, engaged member of UO Senate committees and involvement with the first collective bargaining agreement with United Academics will be a wonderful addition to the team,” said Scott Coltrane, interim president.

Anderson will be co-SVP of Academic Affairs with Doug Blandy. Two years ago they were on opposite sides of the faculty union bargaining table. I’m losing track of how many faculty union leaders are now working as administrators. Blandy is even telling new faculty he thinks they should sign a union card.

I don’t know why, but UO paid Altmann $19K less than Blandy:

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Barbara Altmann leaves UO to be Provost at Bucknell

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Bucknell is a small liberal arts college in the lovely town of Lewisburg, by the banks of the Susquehanna on which I spent an idyllic youth messing about in boats. Will Interim President Coltrane appoint a new Interim VP for Academic Affairs or leave it for Doug Blandy to run on his own?

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From: John Bravman and Kim Daubman <[email protected]> Date: Mon, Mar 16, 2015 at 11:51 AM
Subject: Introducing Bucknell’s Next Provost

Bucknell University

Dear Faculty and Staff Colleagues,
Kim and I write with the exciting news that the search for Bucknell’s next provost has concluded, and it is our great pleasure to introduce to you Barbara Altmann.

Barbara holds her doctorate in medieval French language and literature from the University of Toronto. She comes to Bucknell from the University of Oregon, where she currently serves as senior vice provost for academic affairs. In that capacity Barbara oversees the university’s undergraduate studies as well as its curriculum and program development. Prior to that, Barbara served as the director of the Oregon Humanities Center, a role in which she managed internal research and teaching fellowship programs for faculty, and served as a liaison with other state, national and international humanities centers. Barbara was also the head of Oregon’s Department of Romance Languages, which comprises 45 faculty and 1,000 majors and minors in 12 different degree programs.

Barbara stood out during a national search that drew applications from a large pool of highly qualified candidates. She was among 11 finalists interviewed off-site, and one of four whom we invited to visit campus. During her time here, Barbara met with several groups comprising nearly 80 individuals representing our students, faculty and staff. Barbara’s unique blend of scholarship and administrative experience, coupled with her enthusiasm and passion for an undergraduate education steeped in the liberal arts elevated her to the clear consensus choice for each and every group. You can read more about your peers’ experience with Barbara in this news story. In addition, you can download a PDF of Barbara’s curriculum vitae here, which captures in much greater depth her impressive scholarship and accomplishments.

Kim and I greatly appreciate all those who dedicated their time to this very important process, and in particular the hard work of our colleagues on the search committee. We could not be more pleased with the outcome. Barbara is set to officially join us on August 1, but we hope to coordinate another visit to campus sometime this spring.

I also want to express my deep gratitude to Mick Smyer for his immeasurable contributions to Bucknell since becoming provost in 2008. It is all but impossible to appreciate everything that Mick has done to advance Bucknell, but Bucknell is far better because of him, and the impact of his service will be felt evermore. Mick was recently awarded fellowships by both the Australian government’s Department of Education and Stanford University’s Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. Both will support his current research: “Graying Green: Climate Communication for a Graying World.” After a sabbatical, Mick plans to return to the Bucknell faculty.

At this moment in Bucknell’s history, we find ourselves on a path to great success. The challenges before us are formidable, but the opportunities are unparalleled. Together, we can forge one of the strongest, most distinctive undergraduate learning environments in the country. Adding Barbara to our community is an important step forward in that journey.

John C. Bravman,
President

Kim Daubman,
Faculty Chair

Eleventh hour talks to be held today

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11/25/2014 update: The GTFF has sent its leadership team to meet with the State appointed mediator, presumably for the last time. No word if the UO administration has sent anyone with the power to cut a deal, or just $300-an-hour zoning easements attorney Jeff Matthews and the usual low-level administrators. Meanwhile UAUO President Michael Dreiling has an op-ed in the RG in support of the grad students:

Why do we support the federation?

On Nov. 5, UO President Scott Coltrane explained to the University Senate why attracting, supporting and retaining graduate students is essential to meeting our academic ambitions. The UO is doing poorly in this respect.

Recent data show that our total number of graduate students has declined. Many universities with which the UO competes already provide paid sick leave for their graduate employees. The UO cannot afford to fall further behind them. Better pay and a humane sick leave policy would make the UO more competitive, and we urge the administration to move on these proposals.

He’s got a point. UO needs more grad students to stay in the AAU, as Board Chair Chuck Lillis discussed in his meeting with the faculty Senate. It’s not happening, and we all know pay and benefits are part of prospective students’ decision. Here’s the last 10 years or so of enrollment data (includes professional students). We lost 100 or so last year alone:

11/24/2014 update: Unions post updates on strike, what to do about grades, AAUP support

The United Academics faculty union’s website includes some useful info about grading, and a letter of support from the AAUP for the “dilute and degrade” legislation and opposition to the administration’s confidential strike plans, here. This message is particularly strong:

The campus is caught up in confrontation and brinksmanship. Regardless of where anyone stands on the issues between the GTFF and the administration, we all have right to expect our administration to provide creative leadership in these difficult times. We are not getting this leadership from our colleagues in Johnson Hall.

The GTFF grad student union post is here, and among other things they have a letter of support from a major German trade union, reassuring the UO administration that:

“Parental leave, maternity protection and sick pay are not equivalent to socialism, but are self-evident principles.”

Now that this matter of principle has now been cleared up, perhaps the UO administration will finally agree to a deal with the GTFF. Rumor has it that the mediator from the Oregon LRB is willing to try one more time, tomorrow.

11/22/2014 update: Blandy and Altmann’s admin costs up $1.1M or 50%, in just two years

And Scott Coltrane doesn’t know where to find the $300K to settle with the GTF’s?

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And from what I can tell UO’s General Counsel’s office has spent another $150K on outside lawyers in the last two months, suggesting that HLGR’s Sharon Rudnick and Jeff Matthews may be approaching $250K in billings for the GTFF bargaining. (Dave Hubin’s Public Records office is still hiding the invoices, which I paid him for almost 2 weeks ago.)

11/22/2014 update: The well known Crooked Timber blog follows up on the Chronicle report with a complete dissection of the UO administration’s dissembling about the grad student strike, here.

11/21/2014: $530,000 in Vice Provosts not enough to figure out “X” grade

For some reason UO has *two* “Senior Vice Provosts of Academic Affairs”, Barbara Altmann and Doug Blandy, each pulling in paychecks of ~$190K, plus a regular VP of Academic Affairs Ken Doxsee, paid ~$150K. But apparently three’s not enough to do the job. While we all know Blandy has some unusual but lucrative ideas about what an A grade means,

it seems that Academic Affairs is also now confused about the X grade:

Continue reading →

$360K a year provost sweetens offer to $14K a year grad students – or does she?

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This just in. Has $360K a year (plus $775 a month for her car) Acting Provost Frances Bronet decided to ignore the advice of her $300 an hour HLGR lawyers Jeff Matthews and Sharon Rudnick (and Randy Geller and Dave Frohnmayer?) and sweeten the GTFF deal?

Apparently not. This “flex-time” is something virtually every department already gives as a matter of course:

Colleagues and students,

I’d like to update you on the latest status of negotiations with the Graduate Teaching Fellows Federation. The University of Oregon has announced that it has expanded an already robust offer to include guaranteed flex time, officially recognized in the contract.

Under this new contract provision, it is guaranteed that all GTFs who need to take up to two weeks off due to a family or major medical situation will be able to flex their hours in order to do so. They also will have the ability to work with their departments and the Graduate School to explore whether more extensive schedule changes can be accommodated over the life of their contract. During the period that GTFs are exercising flex time, they will still receive full salaries, tuition and fee waivers, and health insurance coverage for their entire family.

Complete details are available here.

This new flex time proposal is an important complement to an already substantial package. This package also includes:

A nine percent pay increase, over two years, on minimum graduate student salaries. This is the largest negotiated pay increase since 2006;

Full tuition waivers;

Significantly reduced fees (a GTF pays only $61 per term); and

Full family health, vision, and dental coverage with the university paying 95 percent of the premium. This is by far the best healthcare package for graduate student teachers in Oregon and across comparable AAU institutions.

We respect the right of GTFs to conduct a legal strike and hope to reach a fair and equitable agreement quickly. For complete details of the current offer, please visit http://provost.uoregon.edu/gtff-negotiation.

This is a critical time for the University of Oregon. We recognize that there are thousands of undergraduate students who are looking to the university to finalize grades so they can graduate, secure financial aid, or solidify their registration for winter term. As this offer demonstrates, we do not want our ongoing negotiations to negatively impact anyone, especially our students. We are working on contingency plans designed to ensure that there is as little negative impact as possible.

Sincerely,

Frances Bronet

Acting Senior Vice President and Provost

11/16/2014 update: VPAA Doug Blandy blames deans, department heads, and faculty for secret strike plan to degrade academics Continue reading →

VPAA Doug Blandy pulls off daring $1M student credit hour heist

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UO VPAA Doug Blandy:

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3/4/2013: Basically it’s another version of Michael Moffit’s CnC scam – but 5x bigger, thanks to the miracle of online education. And while the instructors in those CnC courses kept to pretty much the same curve as the rest of UO, 60% of the students in Doug Blandy’s courses got A’s – more than twice the normal percentage. It’s a long story, sorry:

Arts and Administration, a.k.a. AAD, is a longstanding MA program for arts administrators. Totally legit – but not very lucrative. For years they’ve also offered a few UO undergrad courses – AAD 250, 251, 252:

Starting somewhere around 2006, when Doug Blandy took over as AAD Director, the program started adding many new online versions of these classes, taught with underpaid adjuncts.

Let’s do some math: For 2011-12 they taught about 2100 students, 4 credits each. Under the Shelton/Bean budget model, AAA gets ~$112 per credit, maybe a bit more given all the “self-supporting” online and summer courses. Let’s call it $1,200,000 or so.  Gotta pay the adjuncts though. For the first one I checked, pay was $15,000, for 0.49 FTE. Slick – no benefits to worry about. Assume that’s for 4 courses, so labor costs are about $4000 a course. 44 courses or so a year, that’s $200,000 for labor, tops. So it looks like AAA and Blandy’s AAD program have been pulling down close to $1,000,000 a year, net, from this scheme.

But why would our undergrads go for these AAD courses? Wouldn’t they take art appreciation courses in the Art History department, from a professor with a respected research program, like, say, this one, or this one, or this one?

Well, no. The AAD courses satisfy both Arts and Letters *and* multicultural requirements. The legendary twofer. And even better, you can do the AAD courses online and get a friend to take the exams for you. And regular Art History courses are hard. The average grade is 2.9. Less than a 3% chance of an A+.

But in the AAD courses, as of Fall 2011, the average undergraduate grade was 3.4. This is almost the highest for any UO department, outside the Education school and Military Science. 19% of students got an A+.  60% of the students got an A:

Last year, when Russ Tomlin’s job opened up, the faculty wanted Barbara Altmann. Instead Interim Provost Lorraine Davis and Interim President Bob Berdahl handed it off Doug Blandy.

Yes, the man behind this online grade inflation scheme is now UO’s Vice Provost for Academic Affairs. Strange – but quite rewarding for Mr. Blandy, whose pay has gone from $78K in 2008 to $180K last year:

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Bad news on future pay

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9/26/2013: As near as I can tell UO has been spending about $50K a month on Sharon Rudnick and Kate Grado from HLGR to do the negotiating with the union, and another $30K or so a month for lawyers and consultants to write Barbara Altmann’s “fact check” website. That’s a lot of money for the rather pathetic FAQ they’ve posted on the union contract, here.

Ignoring their rather interesting spin on the IP, computer files, and consulting issues, there’s some astonishingly deceptive stuff comparing tuition and salary increases. They ignore the 2012-13 tuition increases, when faculty got nothing, and the fact that the legislature paid UO the difference between the 5% and 3.5% tuition increases:

Whatever. The real news is that Gottfredson has abandoned the Lariviere goal to get faculty pay to our comparators:

Q. Won’t faculty salaries remain far below our peers and AAU comparators? 

A. The salary package — which includes across-the-board raises, merit increases, promotion raises and money for tenure track and tenured faculty equity and NTTF salary floors — will move faculty salaries in the right direction. It is also important to look at total faculty compensation (salary + benefits). When benefits are included the gap closes substantially between the University and our comparator universities.

Of course, when differences in summer money etc. are added in, the gap gets wider. The bottom line is that Gottfredson just doesn’t think the UO faculty are worth more money (although he’s got a nice $360K fallback salary as a sociology professor). Compare the above with the language from Coltrane’s 2011 (draft) CAS Equity proposal:

c. Step 3 (as early as FY 2012/13 and no later than FY 2013/2014), increases based on internal equity and merit.

The total amount of funding made available for salary increases by the College in Step 3 will be at least the amount necessary to increase the College’s average salaries to make up the remaining distance to the average salaries of the OUS 8 comparators. 

 So, it’s looking like I was excessively optimistic with this forecast that we’d catch up to the AAU public average by 2021:

But hey, what about that goat! Yes, Gottfredson is throwing the faculty a bone, in the form of a few thousand in one time catch-up payments, a month or so after we sign the union contract. Here’s the math:

VPAA Barbara Altmann tells faculty to take the goat, get back to work

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Update #27 September 9, 2013

It’s Time To Shift Focus Back To Educating Our Students
Contract negotiations between the University and the faculty union, United Academics, ended Friday without a union response to the salary proposal the University put on the table earlier in the week.
That’s disappointing, …
The leadership of United Academics has repeatedly said it wants to do what’s best for the UO and its students and faculty. Now is the time for the union to demonstrate that commitment.

Barbara Altmann, Vice Provost for Academic Affairs and Professor of French

Questions?
If you have any questions about the contract negotiations, please contact me at [email protected] or (541) 346-2172.

Union bargaining IX: 2/19/2013

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Prologue: If I was Tim Gleason I’d be worried about how to top the “UO professors posting child porn on Facebook” meme that he and Barbara Altmann started in session VIII when academic freedom came up. What will our administrative colleagues whip out this time? Sweet and innocent, because they didn’t really understand the part of Dixit and Nalebuff that covers mixed strategies?

Dave Hubin has now been sitting on my request for a copy of President Gottfredson’s official calendar for 6 weeks – after I paid him $108. And he wants $193 for 4 pieces of paper showing how much we paid Sharon Rudnick for November and January. When the ODE interviewed President Gottfredson last month about transparency he said:

“I absolutely support it.”

Right. I’m guessing Rudnick alone is going to bill UO $400,000 for this before it’s over, more if she can drag it out til summer.

Summary:

  1. Rudnick seems to be scheming to weaken the Faculty Personnel Committee. Check out last year’s FPC report, chaired by Mike Russo, here. It includes three pages on issues with current procedures, here. Looks like considerable overlap with the issues the union has identified. Also see the last page: Acting Provost Lorraine Davis refused to meet and discuss cases where he over-rules the FPC, and the FPC has concerns about recent decisions to give particular administrators academic tenure even though they have no recent research output. (Thanks to Russo for correction in comments – it was Davis, not Bean last year. Bean was on sabbatical, how could I forget? See here for a bit about Jim Bean’s past intransigence on this issue.)
  2. The administration seems to have decided to stop fighting with the union over the small stuff. The big stuff – raises – will come up in a month or two.

Live blog disclaimer: Don’t link to this on Facebook, Randy Geller is watching you. It’s for the children, of course. This is my opinion of what people said, meant to say, or were really thinking, in the depths of whatever once passed for their soul. Nothing is a quote unless in ” “. If you don’t like my blog try Luebke’s.

Cast: No Geller, no Altmann. Gleason’s late.

8:00 AM, room 450 Lillis. Act 1:

Art 13: Tenure and Promotion, Admin’s redlined counter to the union’s proposal

Rudnick: Tenure comes from the Provost. (Not from your faculty colleagues?). Provost also approves the criteria and the departmental procedures. Mauer: Shouldn’t there be a way for some give and take? Rudnick: These are the legal minimums. Mauer: Why did you take out the part of our proposal requiring discussion? Rudnick: 3rd year reviews. (Time’s up, Bean). Evaluations: Admin’s want to prevent faculty from using unsigned teaching evaluations in their tenure file. Whatever.

Green: Why do you want to take away a faculty member’s right to have a colleague present at the third year meeting between the Dean and Provost and the faculty member? These are often emotional, good to have a supporter. Mauer: But the Dean could have a lawyer present taking notes? Gleason: Hell yes. Davidson: Why do you want to take this right away? Psaki: This just ain’t right. Rudnick: This is an evaluation, we want it be a conversation between the Dean (and Randy Geller if the Dean wants backup) and the faculty member sitting alone on the other side of the table, so we can keep you people in your place. (Armed UOPD too?) Green: Why do you see this as adversarial? This is the tenth time we’ve presented a plan to make things more collegial, why do you keep slapping us down? Blandy: OK, tell me more. Green: The assistant prof has to respond in 10 days. People are nervous. Need to give them the right to have a friend to take notes, talk with them afterwards. Psaki: This is all murky to the junior faculty going through this. Give them the right to have a colleague there. (Easy fix, just do it. This is a test for the admin side: can they back down and go with a reasonable request like this from the union?) Green: We heard this from many faculty when we talked with them about this clause. Pratt: Having sat at the other side from the faculty, as Assoc Dean, this would help. Anderson: As a former head, it would often have been helpful to have another person there with the faculty person. (Check Luebke’s blog, he’s got more on this). Rudnick: Would this also apply to annual reviews? Maybe there’s a middle ground here. (Wow, this is a first from her.)

Timeline:
Rudnick: We want a timeline and a deadline for submitting tenure materials. Mauer: So, why isn’t there a timeline in your proposal? Rudnick: Whoops, will you write that for us?

Criteria:
Pratt to Gleason: You’re missing the point. We ask best people in the field to write reviews. We want  to send them our tenure guidelines, ask them to consider those when they write the letter. Currently it’s too vague. (He’s right, I write these letters and it’s very helpful when the school sends their criteria). Gleason: I write these letters all the time, no one has ever asked me if this person should get tenure under these criteria. (Weird, I get this frequently).

Faculty Personal Committee’s role:
Rudnick: We are reviewing the role of the FPC, because you went union!!! This is big, big big. Are they going to try and grab power from the faculty on tenure now? Bastards! Cecil: Why did you weaken our language requiring the Provost to provide full and complete justification for a tenure denial? Rudnick: Because we want Bean to have the right to sit down with Geller later, and fabricate new reasons for a denial.

Grievance: New language, we will let people grieve over violations of procedures and practices, and we will then eliminate current practice for appeals. You can grieve, take it to the President, if you can argue that our Provost’s denial is arbitrary and capricious. No recourse to arbitration except on procedural grounds.

Break

Art 15: Grievance Procedure

Rudnick: Calendar days versus working days. She’s insisting that we use the Julian Calendar, or something like that. Cecil: We’ll have to consult with our astrologer, but we’ll get you some latin.

Rudnick: Another concession! Union can institute a grievance over an action (not over an interpretation that doesn’t lead to an action.) Another compromise: additional 180 days to file a tort claim notice over discrimination. Grievant can bring union rep, but must be present themselves. Mauer: Can union rep be there if grievant doesn’t want them to be? Rudnick: That’s your problem, work it out with your member. Rudnick: If faculty member wants to grieve with say Provost and doesn’t want to send a copy to the union, we don’t want to require that they do. Cecil: Send copies of decisions to union. Rudnick: Makes sense.

Art 16: Arbitration

Rudnick: Lots more concessions. Sticking point is no arbitration of matters of academic judgement. Arbitration over procedural issues e.g. about tenure. Not over the decision itself. University should not have to re-employ someone who has been convicted of a crime. Mauer: Regardless of the crime and circumstances? Arlo Guthrie: Littering? Mauer: What if the university disbanded a dept, claiming financial exigency? Lots of productive back and forth between Cecil and Rudnick. Rudnick: We can pay people if they testify for our side, but we won’t agree to pay people who testify for the union. Huh?

Next Session: Admins will have counters on Union rights, Drugs, Discipline. Gleason looks up from his iPad with a weird smile.

Rudnick: Maybe we can get to your economic proposals the week of March 19, so I can get in a lot of $400 billable hours over spring break, reviewing your costly proposals to give you already overpaid faculty excessive raises. Mauer: Thanks.

Union bargaining VII

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Tuesday 2/5/2013, 8-12 AM, top o’ Lillis, room 450. Be there. Bring me some adderall. But, if not, no worries, I’ll live blog it anyway. Meanwhile here’s Dash Paulson in the ODE with the story from last week.

Live blog disclaimer: My interpretation of what people said, meant, meant to say, or what I wished they’d said. Nothing is a quote unless in quotes.

Prelude: UConn has a faculty union and is in the middle of a big push to be the next university to get into the AAU, including hiring of hundreds of tenure-track teaching and research faculty. UO hired a total of 17 new TTF last year (net) and our research plans are in total disarray, thanks to Interim Provost Jim Bean’s incompetence, lack of focus, and distraction by athletics.

Still no response to my public records request for info on who is writing, and vetting, the UO administration’s union matters blog. So I’m guessing it’s not really Barbara Altmann. And that Gottfredson’s probably paying them twice her salary.

And no response from Dave Hubin to my December request for an update on what we’re paying Sharon Rudnick. Dave, it’s February now.

And President Gottfredson, take a clue from UConn, the school that will likely replace UO in the AAU. Cut a quick deal with the union and spend what you save on your lawyers for science startups. That’s not what Ms Rudnick is telling you? You’re paying her $400 an hour for as long as she can drag this shit out. What do you expect her to say?

Characters: Mike Mauer of the AAUP is back. No Geller. No Gleason. No Altmann.

Act I:

Rudnick: We still don’t have much substantive, needs to be vetted. Maybe next meeting.

Successor agreement: Rudnick: Minor changes. Wants ratification quickly even over summer. Gleason arrives. Mauer: Keep old contract in force if no quick agreement, no strike, wants process to get agreement.

New Article, 41: Totality of the agreement.
Rudnick: Comes from PSU or other contract.

Faculty Handbook: Rudnick: Going to let Blandy handle this. Blandy: Allow us to have a rich resource interface with hyperlinks. Jesus Doug, just stop. Print the fucking thing out. But no, he’s going on and on…

Meanwhile, 2 seconds on Google, here’s the OSU Handbook – right there at the bottom, “click here for a printer-friendly version”.

Now he’s onto the hyperlinks, pointers, tubes and quantum valves. He will not print out the docs on the links – e.g. benefit rules. Huh? Green: Huh? Mauer: Huh? So policies, benefits, policies might be changed and no printed record.  Psaki: Huh? Rudnick: We can’t promise it will be up to date. Cecil: Huh? We’d just tell you to update it. What’s the problem again? Green: Huh? The archive will only be in the tubes? Blandy: We won’t print out the hyperlinks for the handbook archives. Blandy: The notice to the faculty will be emails to the Deans. (Does your Dean send you these regularly? Mine neither.) Mauer: Huh? Why not just notify the union. Rudnick: We don’t want to take on that task. Blandy: Printing it out and making sure the faculty are notified is too much work for “The University”. Psaki: Huh? The email Blandy sent out to Dean’s asking for suggestions about the website never even went to the faculty. The union could you help on this. Rudnick: We don’t want help from your kind of people. Green: This will help you, what’s the problem? Just cc the union on the emails. Green: Why don’t you guys call around to other universities and see what they do. This is getting frustrating. Why can’t the Provost just do their job? Rudnick: We’re working with you … (This is working with the faculty? Wait til we get to something important. We’re screwed.)

Rudnick: That’s all we’ve got. The others are close, Randy is sitting on them.

Release time: Rudnick: Your proposal will cost $480K-$1M. She is basing this on salaries, not replacement costs for course buyouts. Bullshit response, she should know better. Mauer: He gets it, she’s stammering. Mauer: Marginal cost equals the first derivative of total cost. Blandy and Gleason: They know better and they are sitting there saying nothing. Gleason: Speaks, but doesn’t get MC either. (Of course he knows the real cost is $6K for an adjunct to teach, he hires them all the time when faculty take admin assignments, but he wants to help Rudnick get that figure up to $1M to make it look scary.) Rudnick: Wants to turn off the sabbatical clock to punish the union president. Whoah lady! Johnson Hall sure didn’t do that for Provost Bean! She backs off, says she’s “just raising these questions”.

Act II: They’re back.

Mauer: Release time response: We see work for the union as service. Cost of business to UO (Just like the $6.67 a minute Gottfredson is paying Rudnick.) This is standard stuff at other universities. Faculty doing union work will of course still be doing much of their normal work as a faculty member. Work with grad students, do other service work, do their research. But your questions about tenure clocks are reasonable, we will look into them and respond. We can’t respond to the merit pay question yet because we don’t know what you will agree to later about merit pay. … We will take a closer look at your cost estimates. We don’t question what you’ve said about the value of the work faculty do, decisions about filling in work, but for the purposes of costing out proposals, we don’t think your calculations are the applicable ones. In some cases the replacement cost will be far less than salary and benefits. Rudnick: Proposal allows 5 full FTE releases, university will have to assume any other work they do as professors would be voluntary. (It’s not like we are professionals) She’s getting loud again. The idea that “The University” would have to pay people to do union work! These numbers are the real cost! “That’s just the  economic analysis of what it costs!” (Yeah, sure. Take a micro principles class.) We would like the union to present a cheaper alternative, even though we’ve just exaggerated the costs. Gleason: Q: TT associate X gets elected, tells Dean. Dean says “you know, this is a bad idea if you want to go up for full. Too much time.” Can I say that? Mauer: No problem for you to say that about the time, improper to make it specifically about the union. Blandy: Given that UO gives little release time for service, why should union service get it? Mauer: Good question, we will look for analogies – e.g. Senate President. (Dept heads typically get all but 1-2 courses released.) Cecil: What % of total bargaining unit members FTE are we asking for? (I’m thinking less than 1%) Rudnick: We don’t disagree with the principle that union work is important or that we should grant release time for it, we just want to exaggerate the cost to make you look bad. But she does have a point that the union’s proposal makes this a right, probably does need to make clear it shouldn’t interfere w/ normal departmental functioning etc.

Mauer: The administrative side needs to pick up their pace. We’ve got 17 proposals on the table that you have not responded too – for a month, month and a half. We know you’ve got to run all this by many people, many of whom took a lot of time off for the Fiesta Bowl (right, Randy and Jamie?). Rudnick: We’re going to take the time it takes to get it right. We’re working diligently. (Why doesn’t the administration bring someone with some authority to the table, instead of Blandy and Gleason?) Rudnick: Loudly: I don’t appreciate your insinuations that we are not working very hard! I am billing UO $400 an hour for a lot of hours, just wait til Dave Hubin finally releases my latest bills!

Mauer: We’re doing our job, we will caucus and be back.

Act III: 

Art 33: Union proposal on Professional Development:
Mauer: Faculty get funds appropriate to rank, can include adjuncts, no dollar amount specified. Details to be handled by departments, but some sort of policy and transparency. Sec 3, if there are requirements regarding tenure and promotion than there need to be funds available to accomplish this. Sec 4., going to conferences is appropriate part of the job, details up to department. Rudnick: Who decides how much money into these funds? Mauer: Up to university and departments. Rudnick: Suppose there’s not enough money in fund to meet tenure requirements, you could file a grievance? Cecil: Yes. Rudnick: Squishy. They are getting into a tenure requirement you attend conferences… I’m confused. Gleason: Suppose it’s the sciences, where you are expected to get grant funding. (Good point Tim. This is actually a fairly productive discussion from the admin side, for once.) Rudnick: Would the Dean be able to over-rule the faculty? OK, this is getting derailed by her dis-understandings of how universities work. Cecil: Write a counterproposal. Rudnick: Cecil, answer my question! Gleason: If the faculty and Dean’s disagree, what happens? Who wins? Davidson: This is shared governance, we get these things done. Rudnick: The Dean’s are ultimately accountable, responsible (except while they’re at a bowl game) while you faculty are a bunch of lesser players and slackers. Mauer: Write a counter-proposal. Bramhall: We have a proposal on shared governance, read it. Rudnick: blah blah. Mauer: Write a counter-proposal. Rudnick: OK.

Art 35: Union proposal on health and safety: Basically, follow OSHA. I’m hoping this is quick, 5 min left on the game clock. Mauer: No faculty shall be subject to the sorts of repeated brain injuries that the AD subjects student-athletes to on the field. Administrators shall take frequent inspection trips to football games to ensure no faculty are on the field. No retaliation for faculty who refuse to serve as linebackers. Rudnick: OK.

See you on Thursday.

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2/2/2012:

All Senior Vice Provost candidate materials, including recordings of the open forums, are available on the Provost website at: http://provost.uoregon.edu/finalist-for-the-senior-vice-provost-office-of-academic-affairs/

Please provide candidate feedback to me by 9am, Monday, February 6th at [email protected]

Lorraine Davis
Acting Senior Vice President and Provost