Tag Archives: Clusters

Jim Bean’s Five Big Ideas, Gottfredson’s clusters-of-excellence, interdisciplinary super-modularity, etc. UO’s administration has a long history of buzzword inspired efforts to take control of faculty hiring away from the faculty and academic departments. They get these ideas from the same bullshit conference powerpoint presentations and “talent management consultants” as every other university does. But now some faculty are fighting back.

Insidehighered.com has a report on the UC-Riverside Senate’s fight to replace their administration’s hubris with some straightforward academic rigor, here:

… While the first wave of clusters already has been approved, the recruitment process is still happening. Part intervention, part response to faculty concerns, the Riverside division of the Academic Senate recently surveyed its members on their views of the initiative thus far. The results were released to faculty members earlier this month, and Inside Higher Ed obtained a copy. A little less than half the faculty — some 330 professors — responded, indicating a high level of interest in the matter. The idea is that the body will use the responses to offer constructive feedback and guidance to the administration in the coming weeks.

Here’s what the survey found. First, most respondents — 82 percent — said their departments already had strategic hiring initiatives in place before the clusters. Some 49 percent of all departments have been able to fill all open positions on their own.

Most of the respondents either agreed that or were neutral as to whether there was sufficient time to prepare cluster proposals (41 percent of respondents were not involved in any proposal). But 72 percent of respondents either disagreed or strongly disagreed that criteria for proposals were clear.

As to the proposal evaluation process, 76 percent disagreed or strongly disagreed that it was transparent. Just 14 percent of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that the feedback they received on their proposals was appropriate, compared to 45 percent who disagreed or strongly disagreed (the rest were neutral).

Some 46 percent of respondents disagreed or strongly disagreed that the provost’s appointed steering committee for the initiative did a good job, compared to the 14 percent who had a positive view (40 percent were neutral). Nearly half of respondents disagreed or strongly disagreed that members of the selection panel knew enough to properly assess proposals.

Perhaps most importantly, the overwhelming majority of respondents — 69 percent — disagreed (over half of them strongly) that the cluster-hiring strategy “is an innovative and appropriate replacement for the traditional departmental hiring strategy.” Most said their own departments’ hiring strategies were inconsistent with the cluster strategy; over half said the cluster strategy interfered with their departments’ strategies.

Diane Dietz has the story in the RG, here.

Dear Colleagues,

As we begin the final weeks of the academic year, I have exciting news to announce about our plans to attract outstanding faculty from across the country to the UO. We are moving forward with funding for two of the proposals identified last year in the Clusters of Excellence hiring program. These two clusters, in addition to recruiting efforts for a third cluster, will add up to a dozen new faculty researchers to our already stellar team in the coming months. The two clusters are:

The Faculty Cluster in Chemistry and Physics to Amplify Excellence in Energy and Sustainable Materials, coordinated by Professor Jim Hutchison, and

The Center for Genome Function, coordinated by Professor Eric Selker.
Initial funding for these Clusters of Excellence will be provided through a combination of previously identified sources, including recurring funds from licensing revenues and recurring funds identified by the Budget Advisory Group earlier in this year’s strategic investment process. We will continue to look for philanthropic and other external funds to enhance these clusters.

Hiring is also underway for a third Cluster of Excellence in Health Promotion & Obesity Prevention, coordinated by Professor Elizabeth Stormshak. This endeavor was made possible by a generous gift of $20 million.

Incoming President Michael Schill has expressed strong support for our efforts to advance our research and creative capacity and expand our outstanding research faculty ranks. He and I, together with the other members of the leadership team, know these foundational hires are paramount to our success. We are committed to competing for top researchers from around the globe. We continue to actively seek resources to fund the other seven selected clusters and will begin planning for future rounds of additional cluster proposals in the future.

This is a time of new beginnings for the University of Oregon, and the Clusters of Excellence Faculty Hiring Initiative is a key component of our next chapter. I will keep you apprised of our hiring efforts and will continue to work to expand our engagement in cutting edge research and creative endeavors.

Thank you for all you do to advance research excellence at the University of Oregon.

Sincerely,

Scott Coltrane
Interim President

Diane Dietz has the story in the RG, here: (whoops, link fixed)

University of Oregon interim President Scott Coltrane on Wednesday outlined his plan to keep top UO faculty from getting picked off by wealthier universities — in the wake of two high-profile departures to the University of Chicago earlier this fall.

Coltrane told the academic and student affairs committee of the UO Board of Trustees that he has a new faculty retention plan.

“We lost those two to the University of Chicago,” he said. “We lost somebody to Missouri. We lost actually four or five to Penn State — one to the University of Florida, one to the country of Norway.”

In total, over the past four years, competing institutions have poached 25 tenured or tenure-track UO faculty.

… The hardest items to match when marauding universities (sic) knock is laboratory space, instruments and more research graduate students.

Salaries aren’t the problem, Coltrane said. “Professors’ salaries are just not that high. We can often match the salary,” he said.

Really? I thought the well was dry, especially now that our new interim VP for Research Brad Shelton is at the trough with the other JH admins.

8/3/2014: RG features sustainable cities cluster of excellence:

Diane Dietz in the RG, here.

7/17/2014: RG features UO nano-science cluster

Diane Dietz has the story here:

A lot of the work is done on nanoparticles, which are 1/50,000th the width of a human hair and can only be imaged and manipulated by high-tech equipment resting on bedrock for stability in the underground Center for Advanced Materials Characterization in Oregon , or CAMCOR.

7/13/2014: UO faculty recruiting relies on wrath of Vulcan, angry God of Fire

Diane Dietz of the RG has the story on the volcanology cluster hires here:

Recruiting won’t be a problem, Wallace said, because … Crater Lake, Mount Hood, Newberry, Three Sisters, Mount Saint Helens, Mount Rainier, Glacier Peak and Mount Baker — all are on the U.S. Geological Survey’s list of volcanos most likely to blow and endanger people.

7/6/2014: RG on Ken Prehoda lab

Diane Dietz’s report here, part of a series on the “clusters of excellence”. Here’s hoping the UOPD gives a pass on the champagne drinking!

More cluster info here.

7/20/2014: In the RG, here. This is silly, the idea has been around forever. OSU does seem to be ahead on implementing it though. But hey, the Beavers can’t beat the Ducks at spending money on sports!

6/28/2014: RG reports on surreal mismanagement of UO research efforts

I’m no humanities professor, but I think surreal is good description. If I was a law professor, maybe I’d use a different word.

Mike Gottfredson has been on the job almost two years, during which his administration has repeatedly dropped the ball on what to do about UO’s research problems. This spring he rushed through the “Clusters of Excellence” or “Cluster Hires” plan. Not a good sign when they can’t even agree on the name.  Diane Dietz has the story in Sunday’s RG – with some blunt facts and quotes – on this latest effort.

I guess you can say it’s better than Jim Bean’s Five Big Ideas – although Gottfredson and Coltrane apparently decided to give Bean his big slice of this little pie a bit early. A full sixth of it, by my math.

Will this be enough to keep us in the AAU? In March 2013 Gottfredson and Dave Hubin told UO’s accreditors that the plan was to get UO into the top half of the AAU. Later Gottfredson backdated UO’s 2009 draft “academic plan” to make it look like it had been finalized. That plan is all about our place in the AAU. It wasn’t until November 2013 that UO finally came clean, with the terrifying “Benchmarking report” that we paid Academic Analytics to prepare. Then we suddenly stopped talking about the academic plan. Now Scott Coltrane doesn’t seem to think we can even stay in the AAU – he’s removed any mention of the AAU from UO’s new mission statement. Apparently the Trustees are going to go along with that.

How did we get to this place? Years of mismanagement by Dave Frohnmayer and his cronies, coupled with hostility and indifference from the OUS board. The new UO Trustees are our only hope, but there’s no evidence yet they are up to the job. Meanwhile it’s amazing to see how many of Frohnmayer’s administrators are still on the ever expanding Johnson Hall dole. And how much is Frohnmayer himself billing us? I don’t know, UO redacts that from the HLGR invoices.