Tag Archives: Beangrams

Tublitz calls for review of Bean

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11/1/2012: Former UO Senate President Nathan Tublitz has sent me a copy of this motion which he intends to introduce in the Senate in November, for debate in January:

MOTION TITLE: Performance Review of Provost James C Bean 

Sponsor: N. Tublitz, Professor of Biology 

MOTION:  The Senate requests President Gottfredson to immediately initiate a comprehensive performance evaluation of Provost James C Bean, the chief academic officer at the University of Oregon. The review of the Provost shall focus on decisions, policies and leadership issues impacting academics and shall contain substantial input from faculty, staff and students. The review shall be completed no later than 31 March 2013 and an extensive executive summary of the review shall be presented by President Gottfredson to the Senate at the April 2013 Senate meeting. 

BACKGROUND: Provost Bean was selected as interim Provost in 2008 by then President Frohnmayer and permanently appointed to the position by then President Lariviere in 2009. In each instance the appointment occurred in the absence of a national search, contrary to the standard hiring practice for this position at the University of Oregon and other research universities. To date Provost Bean has not been the subject of a formal performance review unlike faculty and staff who are reviewed much more frequently. Given that the Provost is the highest ranking and the most influential academic position on campus, this motion requests an immediate performance evaluation of the Provost focusing solely on academic issues. It is important to note that this is not a personnel review; it is a performance evaluation on issues impacting academics at the University of Oregon.

A fairly comprehensive collection of material for Bean’s performance review is here. The cocktail party version? His colleagues have spoken: after the Lariviere firing neither the UO faculty heads, the Faculty Advisory Committee, nor the Senate Executive Committee would support OUS Chancellor Pernsteiner in his efforts to appoint Bean as interim president.

Bean to end Shelton’s "Responsibility Centered Management"

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10/31/2012: Today’s message from our interim provost – presumably sent with Gottfredson’s blessing – represents some serious backtracking regarding Brad Shelton’s 2009 “New Budget Model”, of which Shelton wrote:

What is RCM? In most modern American universities, authority is highly decentralized, but responsibility (specifically financial responsibility) is held centrally. This decoupling of authority from financial responsibility poses problems for decision makers at every level of the University. Responsibility Centered Management (RCM) is a combination of policies and practices designed to overcome these problems by coupling decision making directly to the associated financial ramifications. These policies and practices should be clearly articulated and crafted to fit the mission of the institution. The backbone of an RCM is typically a Budget Model which:

  • prescribes precisely how revenues are shared amongst responsibility units,
  • associates revenues directly to revenue creating activity (for example student credit hours or degrees awarded),
  • allows decision makers to realize rewards from good financial decisions,
  • allows good local decision making to benefit the entire institution.

The Oregon Budget Model is described in detail in the Oregon Budget Model Primer. 

Bean’s message?

“It is a tool that allows the Provost and each of the Deans to understand the financial consequences of each decision they make. The Model is not designed to create incentives or disincentives …”

But of course the whole point of Responsibility Centered Management is exactly that – and it’s a good thing. Johnson Hall has blown through its share of the budget with a raft of pet projects like the $2 million Jock Box budget, Police, administrative sabbaticals, golden parachutes for “special assistants” etc. There’s also been some serious mismanagement – e.g. of ORSA, and some other things they’ve hid pretty well.

Apparently raising the tax rate on the colleges isn’t enough to cover these bills – now Bean wants to pretend the whole deal was just advisory. He gets a bit muddled there in the middle, but see the bottom for where this is going:

Office of the Senior Vice President and Provost
Message for October 31, 2012

Colleagues: 

Below is a description of the Oregon Budget Model.  I thank a number of members of the administration for helping put it together, most notably Brad Shelton. 

What is the Oregon Budget Model?  

The Oregon Budget Model is an arrangement between the Provost and the Deans of the Schools and Colleges. The model determines the overall General Fund Budgets (see below) of the Centrally Funded Units, and each School or College. 

The primary purpose of the Model is to achieve decision-level transparency. It is a tool that allows the Provost and each of the Deans to understand the financial consequences of each decision they make. The Model is not designed to create incentives or disincentives nor does the Model proscribe the internal budgeting process of any School and College.  Those decisions should be made to attain the mission of the institution, not to maximize dollars.  The model is there to show the financial impact of proposed decisions as one factor in decision-making. 

Under the Budget Model, any changes in educational activity directly affect the budgets of the Deans. Changes might include how many student credit hours faculty teach, how many majors are in a school and how many graduate students are enrolled.  

What is the General Fund? 

The General Fund is the bulk of our basic operating funds, the dollars we use to pay for instruction, maintenance, utilities, the library and a host of other operations. The two primary sources of General Fund dollars are student tuition and state appropriation. The General Fund comprises a little more than half of all of the operational dollars flowing through the institution. 

There are many other types of funds within the institution, such as Grants, Contracts, Auxiliary funds (Housing, Parking, Athletics and others) and Gift funds.  The Oregon Budget Model does not affect any of these funds.  

Oregon Budget Model impact 

The best way to understand the impact of the Model on the University is to consider the change in the percentages of overall Academic General Fund budgets and overall Administrative General Fund budgets. 

The Oregon Budget Model was fully implemented in 2010-11, although some of the principles of the model were already used to adjust 2009-10 budgets.  Here is the General Fund breakdown:

General Fund %
Schools and Colleges
Centrally Funded Units
2008-09
57.2%
42.8%
2009-10
59.5%
41.5%
20010-11
61.9%
38.1%
2011-12
63.4%
36.6%
2012-13 (approximate)
63%
37%

To understand these percentages, we must consider some important caveats. The Oregon Budget Model does not just realign budgets; it also realigns responsibilities for certain types of expenditures. For example, under the Model, Academic support accounts became School and College costs rather than Centrally Funded costs.  The percentages above take most of those changes into account, going back to 2008.  Thus we see that the Model has effectively shifted a significant percentage of funding from Centrally Funded to School and College Budgets. 

Plenty of detail about all of our budgets can be found on the web site of the Office of Budget and Resource Planning: http://brp.uoregon.edu 

Future of the Oregon Budget Model 

The Oregon Budget Model is not cast in stone. It has proved to be an excellent tool for analyzing decisions, but any such tool is guaranteed to create unintended consequences. Further, we find ourselves in a very different situation today than in 2009. The model will need to change as we understand the full impact of recent economic events. Like every AAU school that works with an activity-based budgeting system, we will constantly be adapting the Model to best achieve the mission and strategic goals of the University of Oregon. 

I welcome questions or comments at [email protected]

Regards, Jim

Jim Bean to retire as UO Provost?

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10/27/2012: That’s the rumor down at the faculty club. No details yet. An honorable outcome, particularly if it’s quick and cheap.

Update: A reader points out that Lariviere gave Bean a 3 year contract renewal in May 2011, which Berdahl reapproved after the sabbatical – i.e. until July 2014. This doesn’t prevent Gottfredson from hiring a new Provost, it just makes it a bit more expensive.

Deck chairs

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Office of the Senior Vice President and Provost
Message for October 12, 2012
Colleagues:
President Gottfredson has assessed the organizational structure of the University’s executive leadership team and we have made changes to better align the structure with his view of the roles of the president and provost. The changes include some personnel reporting directly to the president, some reporting directly to me, certain staff reporting directly to both of us and others reporting to the Vice Provosts. Lines of communication will be open to both of us regardless of reporting relationships.
The following page links to the new organizational chart and staff responsibility list:
Administrative Structure Highlights:
The following personnel report directly to President Gottfredson:
  • General Counsel Randy Geller
  • Intercollegiate Athletics Director Rob Mullens
  • Development Vice President Michael Andreasen
  • Finance and Administration Vice President Jamie Moffitt
The following personnel report jointly to the president and provost:
  • Equity and Inclusion Vice President Yvette Alex-Assensoh
  • Enrollment Management Vice President Roger Thompson
  • Research and Innovation Vice President Kimberly Espy
  • Student Affairs Vice President Robin Holmes
  • University Relations Vice President Michael Redding
Of particular note here is the promotion of Roger Thompson from Vice Provost for Enrollment Management to Vice President of Enrollment Management in recognition of the importance of enrollment in all phases of the University, as well as Roger’s critical role in discussions of enrollment, tuition, financial aid and accessibility.
A number of reports to the provost’s office are now distributed between the provost, senior vice provost for academic affairs and the vice provost for academic affairs.  The deans all report directly to the provost.  All vice provosts and other reports to the provost’s office have direct access to the provost as needed.
Please send comments or questions to [email protected].
Regards, Jim

Interim Provost Bean can’t do long division

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Update: Bean’s now sent round a new email, proving that at least he can read UO Matters, or has someone on staff to sound out the big words for him. His hack job apologies are not as fun as Randy Geller’s, so I’m just putting it in the comments. FWIW, no one believes the OA/UA classification scheme he’s using either. I’m no economist, but I can forecast the short-term outlook for Bean: running UO’s executive MBA program, from his condo up in Portland. Good riddance.

9/21/2012: If Bean keeps up this quantitative streak, in a few more years he (or whoever does his homework for him) may know almost as much about UO finances and staffing as the AAUP’s Howard Bunsis was able to figure out in a few days from the OUS reports. But he still can’t divide as well as a dog:

For the OA’s: (1242-1094)/1094 = 148/1094 = 13.5%, not 8.8%

Our provost could not even pass the placement exam for Math 111. Maybe something remedial, like Math 095? See the Dog’s comments for more. And the comment of the month?

The most important number, not reported at all, is the number of new provosts. Unfortunately, this number is zero. 

Stop by the UO Matters newsroom and ask our political affairs staffer (on loan from RBI – thanks, Ms Holmes!) for your free “Rob Mullens for Provost” pin.

Office of the Senior Vice President and Provost
Message for September 21, 2012
Colleagues:  

As we welcome new students to campus this week, I want to thank all of you who’ve volunteered to help students move into the residence halls. We are excited about the opening of the new Global Scholars Hall, which gives housing to an additional 450 students and offers an unprecedented academic experience. 

In my last email, I discussed how we arrived at the need for increasing our student body to combat budget shortfalls. This week, I’ll show what we did to meet the demands of those additional students through last year. While we’ve done a lot, we haven’t done enough. 

In the next few weeks, we will have final numbers of Fall 2012 faculty hires and more accurate projections of staff hires. When those numbers roll in, I’ll revisit this topic.
For now, let’s take a look at how we fared last year. 

Between 2008-2011, our student body increased from 21,507 to 24,447, or by 13.6%.
Also, between 2008 and 2011:

  • Classified staff increased from 1,483 to 1,585, or by 9.4%
  • Officers of Administration increased from 1,094 to 1,242, or by 8.8%
  • University administrators decreased by 2, or statistically remained flat
  • Tenure/tenure track faculty increased from 646 to 697, or by 9.3%
  • Non-tenure track faculty increased from 1,089 to 1,287, or by 8.5%

While we have increased the number of faculty and staff, our hiring has lagged behind the increasing demand of the greater student population. 

Faculty hiring has not kept up with the increased number of students simply because it takes a great deal of time and effort to hire high-quality, tenure-related faculty. This year, however, many of the university’s schools, colleges and departments have plans to continue their hiring. It will take several years to catch up to the increased demand.
I will continue to keep you updated on our efforts to meet student demand as the year progresses. 

I look forward to your comments at [email protected].
Regards,
Jim

9/7/2012: It seems that Bean – or whomever he hired to hired to help him communicate with his colleagues – is taking the complaints about lack of substance in his previous emails to heart. The comments are open:


Office of the Senior Vice President and Provost

Message for September 7, 2012

Colleagues:

Over the past few weeks we have seen public discussions of our classroom space capacity. I asked to have an analysis of seating capacity done and my office has now received an in-depth analysis of capacity net gains and losses. The basics are:

The total net gain in seats from new capital construction projects, including miscellaneous gains/losses from 1999-2012 is 1,276.
The total net gain in seats from 1999-2014 (with the completion of the Allen Hall and Straub projects) is projected to be 1,376.
Between 2008 and 2012, the UO added 492 additional seats, or 5% of available seats during 2008.
Since 2008, while seating capacity has only increased by 5%, the student body has increased by 16%, from 21,507 to 25,000.

It will take some time for the seating capacity to catch up to the growing student body, as it takes time to raise money to build buildings. The obvious question then follows, “Why did we grow so fast?”

To answer that, we have to look back to Fiscal Year 2009, when we faced roughly a 50% cut in state appropriations over two biennia.

During that period, the University of Washington met its deficit by eliminating jobs for many hundreds of staff, and Washington State closed many academic departments. The University of California system reduced course offerings and reduced student places by the tens of thousands, significantly raising the amount of time to get an undergraduate degree.

In 2008-09, we held town halls to discuss the budget shortfall and how best to address the problem. Our foremost goal was to protect the faculty, staff and students in the UO community. Rather than cut courses, close departments and cut staff, the UO chose a different path: admit additional students.

We chose to spread the pain of funding cuts over a larger number of people over a longer time frame. We knew that would cause discomfort, but we believe we made the right decision to preserve staff and protect faculty and students. In fact, the increase in student body has led to the hiring of many additional faculty and staff (a future email will detail that).

While we regret that space constraints have caused some people discomfort, we have plans to renovate and build new space. Look for 373 new seats this fall in the Global Scholars Hall. In 2013, Allen Hall will bring 302 seats back to campus. The long-term plans call for building at least three new academic buildings.

The Academic Plan called for enrollment to rise to 24,500, and I promised the Senate I would not authorize increases beyond that until infrastructure caught up, and the entire community discussed the impact on our culture. We have slipped to 25,000, but I am working to keep that lid on. We have no additional capacity at this time.

The classroom crowding you are feeling is real, and it will not be completely remediated for some time. But it is not out of control. We chose this path to protect your jobs and to maximize the student experience. I hope you agree that it was the right choice.

I look forward to your comments at [email protected].
Regards, Jim

Bean’s academic plan actually says 24,00 students, not 24,500. Some slip. Where did the money go? Howard Bunsis of the AAUP seems to know more than Bean – and is certainly willing to say more.

Some idle gossip

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It’s been a while since the latest Beangram. Someone told me he sent out something about online education a few weeks ago, probably got caught in my spam along with the Nigerian offers. Today there’s this from Indiana University – an $8 million initiative to develop online courses. Given the millions that Bean and Moseley have blown on Bend and Portland, I really hope Gottfredson has the sense not to put him in charge of anything expensive like this. Meanwhile, people are talking about  Gottfredson’s plans to devise something dramatic to try and keep UO in the AAU. Maybe along the lines of what Susan Herbst is doing at U Conn?

Here’s a news story on the evaluation of Kent State President Lester Lefton, by student journalists Rex Santus and Doug Brown. The board hired an outside firm to do the evaluation, then made a public report that all was well and paid him his full $100K bonus. The actual report from the evaluators was more critical, and was kept hidden, until the student journalists got it with a public records request. How can you pay a guy a $100K performance bonus out of public funds and try to hide the basis for the payment?

Here at UO top administrators are supposed to get regular annual evaluations, and more comprehensive evaluations on either a 3 or 5 year cycle, no one really knows which. The faculty handbook said every 3 years, but Russ Tomlin deleted the handbook from the academic affairs website, sometime before his own review led to his resignation. Provost Jim Bean will not tell me who else has been evaluated or when. He will say that the schedule for this year’s evaluations has not yet been set:

On WednesdayAug 29, 2012, at 8:50 AM, James Bean <[email protected]> wrote:
Each year we determine who is due, and our capacity to do them, then choose.  We have not settled on those for this year but will do so in the next month.  Jim

Not exactly consistent with the rules, eh? Here’s hoping he and Randy Geller are tops on that list. 9/7/2012.

Bean update

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Office of the Senior Vice President and Provost

Message for August 3, 2012

Colleagues:

Last week I mentioned I would provide an update on the Tuesday, July 24 Leadership Retreat afternoon session. That session included participatory discussion of academic priorities for the development campaign and a presentation on technologically enhanced education.

Deans Frances Bronet and Scott Coltrane presented academic priorities for the development campaign. The goal of this session was to delineate our shared priorities for the broad, collective initiatives to undergird the campaign. Breakout groups were asked to pick three themes that best represent the UO collectively and individually, from the following list:

Key Themes  

  1. Scientific Frontiers
  2. Sustainability / Environment / Place
  3. Global / International
  4. Creativity / Culture / Arts
  5. Innovation + Entrepreneurship
  6. Civic + Social Engagement

The top two themes chosen by the group were Civic and Social Engagement and Sustainability/Environment, with Scientific Frontiers, Creativity/Culture/Arts, Global/International and Innovation and Entrepreneurship following, respectively.

Several groups of participants suggested the categories should be presented as a matrix, with such themes as Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Creativity and Global cutting across all curricula.

Next step: We will continue to develop ideas for final approval by President Gottfredson.

Next week I will discuss the final presentation on online education.

In case you missed it, earlier in the week I announced that Interim President Berdahl authorized a cost-of-living salary adjustment (“COLA”) for most Officers of Administration (“OAs”), effective July 1, 2012. Affected employees will see the impact of the adjustment in their late August paychecks. For details, see http://hr.uoregon.edu/oa/oa-announcement-7-30-2012.

Regards,

Jim

COLA for OA’s, and SEIU response:

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7/30/2012: I’m sure there are many underpaid OA’s even after these raises. And many underpaid staff and faculty. Feel free to comment away. Back in November Greg Bolt of the RG had a story on the raises for UO faculty and administrators that led to Richard Lariviere’s firing. This was shortly before the news on Bean’s beamer and sabbatical came out. The RG Editorial was headlined: “Bad Politics, Good Policy: The UO invests its tuition money in (some) people” The short version:

… The documents list “special equity raises” of $3.1 million for 743 faculty members and $1.8 million for 417 administrators. The faculty raises averaged 6.98 percent; administrators’ increases averaged 7.68 percent. … 

 The biggest raise, of course, went to Bean. I thought the 417 was a little hard to square with the statement from Bean below that

“The majority of the affected employees have not had a salary adjustment since late 2008, nearly four years.” 

but it turns out UO now has 1271 OAs. (Versus only 691 TT faculty). On the other hand the FAQ says 900 will get raises. I’d ask Jim for more clarification, but when Nathan Tublitz asked for details on the 2011 raises Randy Geller tried to charge him $10,000 or so, and then Berdahl shit all over him with the new restrictions on public records access. What he did finally get out of the PRO is here.

I like the way Bean’s FAQ blames the faculty unionization for the fact faculty will get no raises. Yes, our Provost really thinks we are stupid enough to believe his stupidity. Bean’s statement today:


Colleagues: 

I am pleased to announce that Interim President Berdahl has authorized a cost-of-living salary adjustment (“COLA”) for most Officers of Administration (“OAs”), effective July 1, 2012.  Affected employees will see the impact of the adjustment in their late August paychecks.  This will be an across-the-board adjustment of 3.5% for all OAs except; President, Provost, Vice Presidents, Vice Provosts, Deans, tenure related faculty in administrative roles, General Counsel, Athletic Director, athletic coaches with negotiated multi-year contracts , and most F-contract employees.  To be eligible, OAs must have been hired into their current position before January 1st, 2012. 

The majority of the affected employees have not had a salary adjustment since late 2008, nearly four years.  We feel that it is crucial that we take care of this employee group whose commitment to effective and efficient operations of this great institution has helped bring us through this difficult economic period. 

The SEIU contract negotiated by OUS for the seven Oregon Institutions provides COLAs and step increases for our classified staff over the next two years.  We anticipate addressing faculty salary issues in our upcoming negotiations with the newly formed union.A FAQ page with more details is posted at http://hr.uoregon.edu/oa/oa-announcement-7-30-2012.  If you have questions, please direct them to [email protected]. 

Regards, Jim

SEIU local President Gary Malone’s response is, basically, that Bean needs to work on his math:

Dear Provost Bean, 

I would like to clear up a few misconceptions pointed out in your letter rationalizing 3.5% COLA’s for our Officers of Administration Staff. When you say that the 2011-2013 SEIU/OUS CBA “provides COLAs and step increases for our classified staff over the next two years. “ That is somewhat of a misnomer. 

The 2011-2013 SEIU/OUS CBA initially awards Furlough Days for the biennium which equates to a 4.7% pay-cut for all employees. Also, when the CBA was ratified in October of 2011; It rolled back all employees step-increases that were given after June 30 2011. In the 2009-2011 CBA, all steps were frozen and Furlough Days were imposed on Classified Staff Only! The Chancellor initially froze all Merit Increases in October 2008 for all Classified Staff; Right after Faculty and Administration were given substantial pay increases. 

Let’s take a closer look at where Classified Employees are:
1) Merit Increases Frozen 10-2008
2) Furlough Days 2009-2011; 4.7% pay cut
3) Furlough Days 2011-2013; 4.7% pay cut
4) Salary roll back 11-2012, to pre-July 1 , 2012 levels
5) Dec 2012, First Step Increase since 2008; 4.7% increase…But wait…you still have the Furlough Days. Equals no pay increase
6) 1.5% COLA, January 2012. However, the cost of living has gone up 12 to 15 percent since our last adjustment.
7) July 1, 2012, Some people finally get a Step Increase. Many do not.
8) January 1 2013…..Every Classified employee who has been here since 2008 will have received 1 Step Increase +4.7%, and two COLA’s +2.75% , and Furlough Days -4.7% over 5 years….AND Merit Increases are still frozen, or discouraged.
While I appreciate the UO Administration for giving credit to OUS and SEIU for the OA’s good fortunes; The bottom line is that most Classified Employees have only seen to date a modest 1.75% COLA and a -4.7% Furlough Day pay cut for a net of…are you ready for this … Minus 3% over 5 years. Our wages have gone down, not up. Then if you factor in say 12% inflation over the same period and we really are about 15% under paid. 

Respectfully, Gary D. Malone
SEIU/OPEU Local 085 President

Another uninformative Bean email

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Update: I emailed Jim Bean, asking for a list of people on the president’s Transition Team, and got a helpful response:

Not determined yet.  Will review suggestions from retreat and mix in Mike G.’s preferences.  Jim

While his message below says:

This input will be provided to the Transition Team, many of whom were in attendance. 

So I guess things are very much up in the air. I think that’s good news.

7/27/2012: Someone must have told our Provost he needed to work on communication skills if he wanted to keep his job. The form is there, but not the content:


Office of the Senior Vice President and ProvostMessage for July 27, 2012 

Colleagues: 

The Tuesday, July 24th Leadership Retreat was extremely well attended, with a total of 77 faculty, staff, student, alumni association and UO foundation leaders working together to forge priorities for the coming year.  

At the top of the agenda was the transition plan for new UO President Michael R. Gottfredson. While we are still collating input from attendees, a prevailing priority identified is for him to quickly immerse himself in UO culture and become known around campus. This input will be provided to the Transition Team, many of whom were in attendance. 

Next, we looked at the different priorities for the Provost’s office. Participants developed and voted on several topics and agreed that we must give focused consideration to dealing with infrastructure issues related to the larger student body. I am now working with the Senate to send out a campus-wide survey when everyone returns in the fall.  

Wrapping up Tuesday’s morning session was a presentation by Kimberly Espy on new models for supported research and the role of research in key AAU measurements. 
Next week, I will discuss highlights of the afternoon session, which included academic priorities for the development campaign, as well as technologically enhanced education. 

Regards,Jim

Contrast this with the solid, useful information CAS Dean Scott Coltrane sends out to his troops – complete with actual numbers. Respect.

Bean is back from sabbatical

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and another 7/6/2012 update:

From: “Provost Office”
Subject: Hello Again
Date: July 6, 2012 2:14:06 PM PDT
To:


Colleagues:
I have just returned to the Provost’s Office after an eight month leave.  I thank Lorraine Davis for doing a great job in the role of Acting Senior Vice President and Provost.  She left a stronger administration than she took over, in the face of some steep challenges.
I want to discuss two points today: internal communications and priorities for the Provost’s Office.
Internal Communications:  I feel that during the last legislative session, due to our intensely political environment, our internal communications faltered.  I commit to reversing that.  Aria Seligmann, a communications professional working for the Sustainable Cities Initiative, has now committed part of her time to the Provost’s Office to help maintain a continuous flow of information to the UO community.  I will provide regular updates on current events affecting the university, with data summaries of various successes and challenges facing the campus.  I am reorganizing the Provost’s Office to free up time for visiting with faculty, staff and student groups across campus.
Priorities:  Later this month, our leadership retreat will address the most pressing priorities for the Provost’s Office during this coming year.  The group in attendance will include the Leadership Council augmented by faculty, staff, student, Foundation and Alumni Association leadership.  I will present some ideas such as review of the Academic Plan and the Big Ideas, office and classroom space, etc.  The group will have an opportunity to add topics and to do an initial prioritization.  I have already spoken with Robert Kyr, President of the University Senate, about an online ranking process of these priorities, to be run by the Senate in September, involving the entire community.  From all this input, the President and I will settle on the priority topics for this year.
Until next time, enjoy the summer that seems to have finally arrived.
Regards, Jim



7/6/2012 update. Seems like Lorraine’s search to replace Don Harris worked out:

From: “Provost Office”
Subject: CIO and Vice Provost for Information Services Announcement
Date: July 6, 2012 9:34:37 AM PDT
To: 

Colleagues:
I am pleased to announce that Dr. Melissa Woo has accepted our offer as CIO and Vice-Provost for Information Services for the University of Oregon.  Melissa currently serves in the role of director in University Information Technology Services at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM). She has a BA from University of California, Berkeley, a PhD in biophysics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and extensive IS leadership experience at Illinois and UWM.  She brings particular expertise in research computing. Melissa will be joining us September 3, 2012.
Please join me in welcoming Melissa and thanking Roger Thompson and the search committee for bringing us such outstanding candidates.
Regards, Jim

7/4/2012 update: provost.uoregon.edu has been revised. On the homepage Bean is no longer claiming to have been provost since 2008. But his official biography still does:

We’ve all got our pride I guess, but leaving the interim appointment business off of his vitae might be a bit problematic in some situations. No word on a date for his performance review – let me know if you hear anything.

7/1/2012: It’s no surprise that his website is wrong. Frohnmayer appointed him as *Interim* Provost in 2008, after Linda Brady left in a hurry. There was no search. Then, after he ran Lariviere’s transition team, Lariviere appointed him permanent VP and Provost in 2009. Again, there was no search. Nor has Bean ever had a performance review as interim Provost or Provost. Bean’s 2011 sabbatical plan talks about him “transitioning back to faculty”. Great – but when?

Bean’s vision of UO’s future is perhaps best captured by his 2009 academic plan, which has been ignored by everyone including his own office. Acting Provost Lorraine Davis has spent the past year cleaning up his various messes. It’s a long list, but her most recent effort has been Information Services. 2 years ago CIO Don Harris had a performance review that turned up lots of problems. Bean did nothing. So, while Bean was out on sabbatical Davis fired Harris, restructured his office, and started an open, transparent search which has brought 3 candidates to campus over the past month.

Maybe Gottfredson will keep Davis around, and have her run a similar search for a new Provost?