Tag Archives: Doug Blandy

Shocking NSFW photo shows depravity behind OBF’s firing of Matthew Halls

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Bob Keefer has the latest on the deBachle in the Eugene Weekly, from another drip of UO public records. Apparently OBF Exec Director Janelle McCoy was keeping a dossier on Halls’ various infractions, “small and smaller”, including photos of the depraved acts that took place at the house the festival rented for him in Eugene:

Actually, that’s a photo of Who drummer Keith Moon’s hotel room after a concert back in the 70’s. The photo below shows what happened at the house the OBF rented for Halls – courtesy of the UO Public Records Office:

Yes, that’s a dryer filter, with lint in it. I’m no Maytag repairman, but the family lint is pretty personal stuff for a university that claims it can’t release personnel records. While the EW choose not to publish this photo, UOM’s editorial board is far more progressive, and as Keefer reports this is not exactly Harvey Weinstein material:

… OBF executive director Janelle McCoy apparently kept a laundry list of Halls’ sins, small and smaller, nearly from the moment she began work at the festival on Jan. 28, 2016. … No transgression seems too petty for McCoy’s list, which contains a photo of excessive lint in the clothes dryer at the house where Halls stayed during the 2015 festival.

Perhaps the biggest item on the laundry list was that Halls was “abusive” toward McCoy at an OBF Friends of the Festival board retreat on Oct. 30, 2016. Whatever abuse Halls may have committed, though, doesn’t appear anywhere in the official minutes of that retreat, which EW obtained from the university.

… Board member and OBF co-founder Royce Saltzman said, “OBF is in great hands. Openness has given each of us an insight into what has to happen to make OBF successful.” He’s also quoted saying, “The openness Janelle and Matthew demonstrated to the board of their working relationship is important.”

And Doug Blandy, the UO’s senior vice provost for academic affairs, says in the minutes that “such honest discussion leads to a stellar festival.”

No one, according to the minutes, felt the need to comment on or even hint at Halls’ supposed abusiveness.

In early December, though, more than a month after the retreat, Blandy — who would later sign off on Halls’ firing — wrote to Halls that his “treatment of Ms. McCoy [during the retreat] was unacceptable” and threatened to terminate his contract.

And then Blandy – not known for his decision-making ability – gave Halls a raise and a new contract. Then someone fired Halls. Then UO’s PR flacks cooked up a story for Around the O and the smear campaign started. I wonder when UO will give Keefer the records showing who started it?

Meanwhile I’m going to go check our dryer, just in case. For the nostalgic, here’s a link to the smear campaign against me from Doug Blandy, Tim Gleason, Sharon Rudnick et al. during the first round of union bargaining.

Oregon Bach Festival Artistic Director was fired for his big ego and bad dog

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12/11/2017 update:

“At no time was I, or my agents, made aware of any of the complaints listed in Ms. McCoy’s timeline, with the exception of the dog scratches on the floor in 2015,” he wrote.

So the grits were just a decoy. In the end it was all about the dog. And some stolen CDs and a bad DIY air-conditioner installation. The Register Guard’s Saul Hubbard has the shocking revelations from UO’s Office of Public Records latest doc dump here.

12/9/2017: Doug Blandy gave Matthew Halls a reprimand, then a raise, then fired him, then gave him $90K.

Yesterday UO’s famously dilatory Public Records Office turned the OBF Board minutes over to the Eugene Weekly’s Bob Keefer, two months after he filed the public records request. Here are some snippets, read his story here for more misfeasance:

[Bach Festival co-founder and OBF Board Chair Royce Saltzman] demanded  to know why the board hadn’t been consulted in advance of the firing or the announcement. [Associate General Counsel Doug Park] said the board’s charter gives it authority to advise only over hiring, not firing, and keeping the board in the dark protected members from liability.

Odd that the Board doesn’t seem to believe Park, or be more grateful.

OBF executive director Janelle McCoy also said at the meeting that then-Provost Doug Blandy issued Halls a reprimand last year. There was no follow-up as there would have been for an employee, she said, because Halls was an independent contractor.

Yes, that certainly explains why she and Blandy then renewed his contract and gave him a raise. Of course Saul Hubbard’s November 14th story in the RG, here, based on earlier document releases, shows that McCoy knew she wasn’t telling the board the real story:

… The document does, however, show a split between the university’s Office of Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity and McCoy over how to reprimand Halls, an independent contractor who had just been given a multi-year extension and a raise.

After two initial complaints in July, Cherie Scricca, an outside consultant working for the UO, recommended that school officials meet with Halls to discuss the school’s non-discrimination policies and that they update his contract to include “written expectations of proper behavior including equal and fair treatment of festival participants regardless of race, national origin, age, disability.”

Scricca also suggested that written notice be added to Halls contract that, if he did not meet those expectations, his contract could be immediately terminated, and that the festival would hire an “understudy” artistic director who could replace him.

But that meeting with Halls and those proposed contract amendments appear to have never occurred.

After two further complaints came in, including the sexual harassment allegation, McCoy made the decision to terminate Halls, emailing Scricca to tell her as much on August 16. Scricca disagreed with that decision, suggesting a “similar” course of action to her previous recommendations when she spoke with McCoy on August 23.

The next day, however, Halls was fired, with a UO administrator, Senior Vice Provost for Academic Affairs Doug Blandy, signing his termination letter. …

And I should note that Blandy was actually “Senior Vice Provost for Academic Affairs”, not provost, and will continue to be paid as SVPAA until the end of the year, because … I have no idea.

Doug Blandy fired Bach Fest director Halls despite AAEO Director’s advice

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11/14/2017:

Saul Hubbard has the latest in the RG here:

… The document does, however, show a split between the university’s Office of Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity and McCoy over how to reprimand Halls, an independent contractor who had just been given a multi-year extension and a raise.

After two initial complaints in July, Cherie Scricca, an outside consultant working for the UO, recommended that school officials meet with Halls to discuss the school’s non-discrimination policies and that they update his contract to include “written expectations of proper behavior including equal and fair treatment of festival participants regardless of race, national origin, age, disability.”

Scricca also suggested that written notice be added to Halls contract that, if he did not meet those expectations, his contract could be immediately terminated, and that the festival would hire an “understudy” artistic director who could replace him.

But that meeting with Halls and those proposed contract amendments appear to have never occurred.

After two further complaints came in, including the sexual harassment allegation, McCoy made the decision to terminate Halls, emailing Scricca to tell her as much on August 16. Scricca disagreed with that decision, suggesting a “similar” course of action to her previous recommendations when she spoke with McCoy on August 23.

The next day, however, Halls was fired, with a UO administrator, Senior Vice Provost for Academic Affairs Doug Blandy, signing his termination letter. …

Blandy was told over the summer that he was being replaced as SVPAA, but was kept on at at full pay and with his JH office until, I believe, the end of December.

update: Back to Bach: EW’s Bob Keefer gets the docs on Matthew Halls firing

Keefer has now updated this story with a quote from feckless UO strategic communicator Tobin Klinger, who has had almost three months to prepare his talking points for the release of these public records, and could only come up with this:

The document does “not indicate that the reported incidents are the *why* behind the change in Halls’ status,” UO chief sokesman[sic] Tobin Klinger emailed. “You’re assuming a causal relationship that is speculation. As has been said before, we can’t discuss specifics of a personnel matter, …

Sure you can’t. Here’s the Around the O post from Aug 27, discussing specifics of a personnel matter:

Oregon Bach Festival (OBF) is moving forward in an exciting direction that will bring new voices, points of views and artists with more diverse backgrounds to festival audiences. Starting in summer 2018, guest curators will work with OBF staff to build a season of dynamic and engaging musical selections led by world-renowned conductors.

As part of the transition, OBF is parting ways with artistic director Matthew Halls. Halls leaves the festival with a legacy that includes the establishment of the Organ Institute, the Vocal Fellows program, and the Berwick Academy for Historically Informed Performance. During his tenure, Halls conducted many of Bach’s masterworks, including his own reconstruction of the composer’s lost St. Mark Passion, as well the world premiere of A European Requiem from Sir James MacMillan.

The transition is a strategic decision, made by OBF administrative leadership and the University of Oregon, and will keep the festival relevant in the ever-changing classical music industry.

“There’s an emerging trend,” explains OBF executive director Janelle McCoy, “to plan a season from the perspective of a guest curator from a different field or genre and then invite conductors to participate, rather than programming from a single artistic voice. …

Of course this was all lies, and I guess in Klinger’s world that made it OK for UO to discuss it.

11/14/2017: UO’s Public Records Office has finally begun releasing the public records, and the Eugene Weekly’s Bob Keefer has a teaser on what they show, and don’t show, about OBF artistic director Janelle McCoy’s stated reasons for firing artistic director Matthew Halls:

… The newly obtained document lays out two main complaints against Halls, an internationally known conductor who had been selected to replace OBF’s founding artistic director, Helmuth Rilling, on his retirement in 2013.

The first has been widely reported, that Halls was overheard making a racially insensitive remark to countertenor Reginald Mobley at a post-concert reception last summer. Both Mobley and Halls, who are friends, have strongly denied there was anything but good humor in the exchange.

The second is a July 12 complaint made by an unnamed OBF musician that Halls did not pay women musicians as much attention as he did men in rehearsals. “Our artistic director Matthew Halls does not call on them during rehearsals and favors the men,” the complainant said.

The heavily redacted complaint went on to say that Halls had made “inappropriate remarks,” though it doesn’t say what. The complainant also alleges that she heard similar complaints from other women and at least one man. …

McCoy is apparently still on the UO payroll, but her authority as executive director has been taken away and the Bach festival is now being run by Brad Foley, Dean of the School of Music and Dance.

Ojai Music Festival calls on Eugene Mayor to help OBF secede from UO

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9/22/2017: Bob Keefer has the latest in the EW here:

Thomas W. Morris, artistic director of the Ojai Music Festival in California, has urged Eugene Mayor Lucy Vinis to help the beleaguered Oregon Bach Festival secede from the University of Oregon and become an independent non-profit organization.

In a letter emailed today (Sept. 22), Morris wrote that the sudden and unexplained firing of OBF artistic director Matthew Halls on Aug. 24 harms not only the Oregon Bach Festival but hurts the image of Eugene itself. …

Uh, thanks for trying to help Mr. Morris, but the City of Eugene couldn’t even manage to keep the Jacobs Art Gallery open, or run the Mayor’s Art Show.

Also see this RG letter from longtime UO supporter Tom Bowerman:

I agree with the bulk of written commentary about the University of Oregon’s dismal explanation of Matthew Halls’ dismissal. My position began to solidify on reading UO’s written explanation, which seemingly explained nothing.

There is a pattern here and it has consequences, especially regarding some of the fiscal and reputational costs to the university. My thought in reading the UO’s explanation was: How much does the public relations team get paid for type of work? And the settlement costs?

Couldn’t these costs, across the broader pattern, in the millions, be better spent on education quality? …

And the UO PRO has now updated the PR log with some recent requests from journalists for more Bach docs.

9/18/2017: Did OBF’s Janelle McCoy run a harassment investigation on Matthew Halls?

If so it would probably be a violation of UO policy (see below), which requires that those receiving “credible information” of racial harassment report it to AAEO, which then decides on the investigation, etc. And yet the most likely interpretation of this new NYT report regarding the grits joke and the implications for the Bach Festival of the subsequent firing of Halls is that Ms McCoy decided to investigate Mr. Halls herself:

Mr. Mobley said he had thought no more of it until several days later, when he got an email from Ms. McCoy asking about the conversation, which had apparently been overheard and reported. “These insensitivities should not be tolerated,” she wrote in the email, which was obtained by The New York Times.

Mr. Mobley replied to her that while the broad outlines of the story were true — Mr. Halls had indeed spoken in a drawl — it was “not quite put together correctly.” He noted that he and Mr. Halls often teased one another.

“Trust me,” he added, “it’s been a couple patrons and audience members who’ve unknowingly said pretty insensitive things. Not Matt.”

The story was picked up by British media outlets. But Tobin Klinger, a spokesman for the university, said that the conversation with Mr. Mobley had not been a factor in Mr. Halls’s firing. And a lawyer for Mr. Halls, Charese Rohny, said that Mr. Halls “was never presented with anything that required a response” regarding any inquiry before he was fired.

Given Klinger’s truthiness record, his statements get a weight of 0.00, and reporters are making public records requests to try and find out what really happened. UO has not been listing these requests on the official log – a new low in official UO transparency, and one which perpetuates the selective leaks, official innuendo, and unofficial rumors which have characterized this mess.

The last OBF request was Bob Keefer’s, for the Halls contract and termination letter:

The relevant policy is here. Some excerpts (emphasis added):

III. Responsible Employees Reporting Obligations

Except as provided for in the Student Sexual and Gender-Based Harassment and Violence Complaint Response (Student Complaint Response Policy), Responsible Employees who receive Credible Evidence of Prohibited Discrimination, Harassment or Sexual Harassment involving an Employee, Student or Campus Community Member are required to promptly report that information as follows:

1. If the Credible Evidence relates to Sex Discrimination of a Student, Responsible Employees should report any information received to the Title IX Coordinator or to the Office of Crisis Intervention and Sexual Violence Support Services. (Note: The Student Complaint Response Policy applies to information disclosed by a student reporting sex discrimination and sexual harassment, including sexual violence. That policy may provide for different reporting obligations depending on the status of the employee receiving the report. Employees who receive reports of sex discrimination (including sexual harassment and sexual violence) against a student should reference the Student Complaint and Response Policy in order to determine their reporting obligations.)

2. In all other instances, Responsible Employees should report any information received to the Office of Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity (AAEO).

Employees should be aware that AAEO is tasked with ensuring compliance with this policy and state and federal law.  Therefore, while AAEO will work with employees, students and campus community members to ensure that they understand their complaint options, are protected from retaliation and are provided with interim measures as appropriate, AAEO employees are not advocates for individuals participating in the process.

The relevant definitions in the policy are:

A. Prohibited Discrimination is defined as any act that either in form or operation, and whether intended or unintended, unreasonably discriminates among individuals on the basis of age, race, color, ancestry, national or ethnic origin, religion, service in the uniformed services (as defined in state and federal law), veteran status, sex, sexual orientation, marital or family status, pregnancy, pregnancy-related conditions, disability, gender, perceived gender, gender identity, genetic information or the use of leave protected by state or federal law. “Unintentional discrimination” is a concept applicable only to situations where a policy, requirement, or regularized practice, although neutral on its face, can be shown to have disparately impacted members of a protected class. The concept is inapplicable to sexual or other forms of harassment which, by definition, result from volitional actions.

B. Discriminatory Harassment is defined as any conduct that either in form or operation unreasonably discriminates among individuals on the basis of age, race, color, ancestry, national or ethnic origin, religion, service in the uniformed services (as defined in state and federal law), veteran status, sex, sexual orientation, marital or family status, pregnancy, pregnancy-related conditions, physical or mental disability, gender, perceived gender, gender identity, genetic information or the use of leave protected by state or federal law and that is sufficiently severe or pervasive that it interferes with work or participation in any university program or activity, including academic activities because it creates an intimidating, hostile, or degrading working or university environment for the individual who is the subject of such conduct, and where the conduct would have such an effect on a reasonable person who is similarly situated.

H. Credible Evidence: Credible Evidence is evidence of the kind that prudent people would rely on in making personal or business decisions, which is not obtained: (1) during public awareness events (For example, “Take Back the Night,” and “survivor speak outs”);  (2) as part of an Institutional Review Board-approved human subjects research protocol focused on Prohibited Discrimination; or (3) in the context of a required classroom assignment. (Note: If a faculty member believes that a classroom assignment may illicit a disclosure that would trigger obligations under this policy, the faculty member should make clear to students that an account provided in response to a classroom assignment, without more information, will not result in the university taking any action in response to the disclosure. This means that the university will not investigate the incident, offer interim measures or otherwise take step to remediate the behavior.)

K. Campus Community Member: Campus Community Member means a person participating in a university-sponsored program or activity, attending or wanting to attend an event on university owned or leased property, an independent contractor or vendor, a volunteer, a person applying for admissions, a person applying for employment, or a campus visitor or a person living on university-owned property. The term Campus Community Member excludes Employees and Students.

9/15/2017: RG calls for UO Trustee Ann Curry to investigate Matthew Halls firing

“Bach Debacle”, here:

…  UO President Michael Schill could appease both groups of stakeholders by appointing a handful of university regents — perhaps headed by television journalist Ann Curry — to investigate. That, after all, is their job — to “supervise, coordinate, manage and regulate the UO,” a public university that, at least in this matter, is operating in a very private mode.

If, as the UO asserts, Halls’ firing had nothing to with the remark that he made to Mobley, the investigation can confirm as much. That would go a long way in restoring people’s lost faith in the UO.

Conversely, if it turns out Halls was fired because of the remark, the investigation would give the university the opportunity to come clean, hold accountable those who spun a different story and take the appropriate action to start anew with OBF.

Finally, if Halls — a private contractor, not a UO employee — was fired for crossing some ethical line, the investigation would bring that to light, too. …

And if the latter should be true, they could explain why whatever it is that Halls did was so bad he had to be fired immediately, but not so bad that UO could agree to keep it secret from his other current and potential employers.

9/13/2017: UO to pay Matthew Halls $90K for non-disparagement & gag-rule

The agreement is here. The RG’s Saul Hubbard has much more on this deal here.

It includes a promise by UO to give Halls 24 hours notice of public records requests. I’ve heard rumors of a request to UO for emails etc that might shed light on why whatever it was that Halls did was so bad he had to be fired immediately, but not so bad that UO had an obligation to warn his other employers and potential employers.

But so far there’s nothing in the Public Records Office log except the RG’s request for the contract and termination letter, which Hubbard posted earlier. So until new light has been shed on this, we’re stuck with the hypothesis that he was fired for disparaging comments about southern cuisine.

9/13/2017: UO to pay Matthew Halls $90K for non-disparagement agreement and 24-hour gag rule:

That’s from tweets from NY Times classical music and dance reporter Michael Cooper:

9/12/2017: Bach Festival’s fate passes from Blandy and the PR flacks to the lawyers

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UO grade inflation continues, after reform efforts fail

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Will Campbell has an excellent data driven story with the history of UO’s failed efforts to fight grade inflation in the Emerald here:

… In 2009, when [CAS Associate Dean Ian McNeely] became chair of the Undergraduate Council, the university-wide body that oversees undergraduate education, he became familiar with grade inflation.

He decided to look into the grading culture at UO. He talked to at least five committees around campus, met with deans and the UO president, held town hall meetings and eventually published a blog in May 2010 to create a wider conversation for UO faculty about grading trends.

McNeely used a UO report from 2006 of the university’s grade statistics as evidence for grade inflation. The report found that between 1992 and 2004, the percentage of A’s awarded went up by about 10 percentage points — 31.3 percent to 41.6 percent— and the percentage of A’s and B’s together went up by seven points — from 65.6 percent to 72.6 percent.

McNeely published a report the next month with three proposals to take action against inflation. The report states that McNeely proposed each department develop specific grading standards, or “collaborate and decide on their own general description on an A, B, C grade, and so on,” he said.

He and the undergraduate council also wanted each department to evaluate the grading habits of its professors. That way department leaders would be able to safeguard against inflation. McNeely’s third proposal suggested that students’ transcripts show what percentage of the class received the same grade. “So that would almost be an incentive for professors not to inflate grades because then it might look bad on a student’s transcript,” he said.

The first proposal passed in the senate, but McNeely said that not every department complied. The other two proposals failed on the senate floor.

Currently, McNeely is unaware of any administrative initiatives to combat grade inflation, he wrote in an email to the Emerald. …

There’s much more, read it all.

The Emerald also has an interface that lets you look at grades by course and instructor here. For example,  here’s one of the infamous AAD 250 Gen Ed classes that VP for Academic Affairs Doug Blandy set up:

co-VPAA Doug Blandy runs secret search for AVPAA

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Doug Blandy needs to get with UO’s new transparency and shared governance movement. Here’s the job posting for his new Assistant VP: http://jobs.uoregon.edu/unclassified.php?id=5300:

… Academic Affairs has a strong role in advising and communicating with all departments/units and colleges in the interpretation of academic practice and policy. The assistant vice provost supports the office on many academic faculty matters.  The assistant vice provost represents Academic Affairs to the administrative leadership of the university, the schools and colleges, Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity, Human Resources, and United Academics.  The person in this position will participate in meetings and serve on committees involving faculty or programmatic issues.

There were three candidates out this week. I asked for the names of the people on the search committee. They won’t tell me. There was no notification given to the Senate nor any opportunity for Senate participation in the day-long interviews. Blandy’s staff person asked me not to post the finalist’s names or c.v.’s even though there is nothing in the search announcement suggesting confidentiality. Against my better judgement, I won’t.

Presumably Blandy has an inside candidate, and the faculty will be told who that is whenever it suits Blandy.

Reminds me of when Gottfredson hired Chuck Triplett – though at least they posted a job ad this time. In related news, the Senate will take up the matter of faculty participation in hiring and review of administrators in January.

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:

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$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 →

Doug Blandy switches sides on union

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9/25/2014 update:The faculty union had lunch today with the new faculty hires. They were in the middle of their orientation, which ends tonight with a BBQ in the Alumni Center. I remember Frohnmayer used to invite the new faculty to McMorran house – not sure when that tradition ended. Anyway, from what I could tell most of the new faculty signed cards, and they reported that the administrators who had talked to them – Barbara Altman, Ken Doxsee, and Doug Blandy – were uniformly positive about the union’s influence on UO. Blandy even sat there at the table as the union reps collected cards from the new hires. Quite the switch from last year:

10/17/2013: Plenty of water in Gottfredson’s well – for Jim Bean

At the faculty union bargaining session on 9/6/2013, the UO administration’s chief negotiator and famed tobacco company lawyer Sharon Rudnick presented President Gottfredson’s final offer on faculty salaries, saying

“The well is dry. Hear me please. The well is dry. This is an incredibly rich offer.”

UO’s VPAA Doug Blandy sat there, nodding his head. Two weeks later the union bargaining team accepted it.

Why was the well so dry? In part because, just a week before, Blandy had signed off on this contract with former interim Provost Jim Bean, guaranteeing Bean about $1M in salary and benefits over the next three years. Dave Hubin’s public records office sat on this request for a month, until after the faculty had ratified the CBA. How’s that for good faith bargaining?

…

That’s on top of Bean’s odd 2010 sabbatical, and what we paid him after the Senate forced him out in February.

Bean’s new job is Associate Dean for “Experiential Learning” at the LCB. A newly created position. Sounds like a great idea – undergrad internships and so on. You might think there’d have been a job posting and an open, Affirmative Action compliant search for an important, well paid job like this – especially given UO’s troubled history with these administrative golden parachute appointments. I’ve got a public records request in. We’ll see how much Dave Hubin tries to charge for the documents.

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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Oregon researchers discover college with higher grades than Harvard

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From today’s Harvard Crimson:

“I can answer the question, if you want me to.” (Dean) Harris said. “The median grade in Harvard College is indeed an A-. The most frequently awarded grade in Harvard College is actually a straight A.”

From UO Matters story, “VPAA Doug Blandy pulls off daring $1M credit hour heist”:

RG compares online efforts at UO and OSU

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11/25/2013: Diane Dietz has an excellent, thorough story in the RG today. The bottom line? OSU has a very organized, extensive effort, and is now giving OSU degrees to on-line only students with no indication that the students were never on campus. Presumably this is part of the reason for their recent enrollment increases. OSU tuition is actually higher for the online courses.

UO has a few programs with online classes delivered by using various lecture capture options, but no central direction. At UO, online education was another of Jim Bean’s pet projects, so the disarray is hardly surprising. Economics comes in for special mention as the [CAS] department with the most online students. They report the online courses are more difficult than the regular ones, and they tend to be taken by good, motivated students who want a faster pace. There’s no mention in the story of VPAA Doug Blandy’s AAD 250-252 courses and his daring $1M credit hour heist – 65% A’s! [AAD now has about 1500 UO students taking these online courses – great for their GPA’s.]

Please post a link and comments if you know of any particularly good general studies or reports on on-line ed – there’s a lot of stuff in the Chronicle etc., but I haven’t dug through it.