Tag Archives: Presidential search

Should the Board’s search for our next Pres be open or closed?

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President Schill was hired by Board Chair Chuck Lillis after a closed search (which additionally minimized faculty input, and gave Lillis sole power to pick the one finalist.) This report from the Brechner Center for Freedom of Information is the first attempt I’ve seen to examine the consequences of such closed searches:

The most common argument for a confidential university executive search is that the school will not get the “best” candidate if it opens up the search, because good candidates would be wary about applying due to the possibility their interest in the job would be revealed to everyone. Would-be candidates are alleged to be afraid that if they apply for a job and do not get hired, that they will seem like “damaged goods” in future job pursuits, or that their interest in another job will result in retaliation at their home institutions.

… The closed searches did garner a larger percentage of chief executives than the open searches did (23.0 percent > 10.8 percent). So proponents of closed-door searches are probably correct that some sitting presidents or chancellors hesitate to risk disturbing relations back home (or to incur the embarrassment of a public rejection) by allowing themselves to be considered publicly. It’s worth noting, however, that even with a secret search, universities do not end up hiring a sitting chief executive more than three-quarters of the time.

Closed searches resulted in slightly more deans (9.7 percent > 8.5 percent) and government officials (7.3 percent > 4.6 percent) while open searches resulted in more hires from executives who were not the top executive, such as an executive vice president or provost (44.6 percent > 38.8 percent). Interestingly, the most pronounced difference between open and closed searches was in the likelihood of hiring a candidate from the business sector as opposed to someone currently working in higher education; closed searches resulted in hiring a business executive 10.6 percent of the time, while open searches produced a candidate from the business community only 1.8 percent of the time.

… Statistically, there does not appear to be support for the contention that being publicly considered for a university presidency is likely to produce severe professional harm. The most common outcome for those who sought presidencies and were not chosen is to be hired for a different presidency, which suggests there is no widespread “damaged goods” perception. Almost all of those who did not attain another presidency within a short time either remained in their current positions, secured other university executive positions, or (as with Johnson, King, Panchanathan and others) left campus for prestigious executive positions elsewhere.

Berdahl to ask Trustees to give Gottfredson another chance

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4/10/2018 repost, for no particular reason.

6/8/2014: Rumor down at the faculty club is that Gottfredson and Berdahl are closeted in McMorran House, working on a strategy to convince the Trustees to give Gottfredson another chance. From the meeting packet here:

June 12, 12:00 pm: Trustees roundtable discussion with Bob Berdahl Ford Alumni Center, Room 403

Presumably Berdahl will be introduced to the board as former UC-Berkeley president, AAU, etc. A legendary leader in higher education. Then he will explain to the awestruck trustees that any more turnover in the UO presidency would be so disruptive, and the search for a replacement so difficult, that it’s better for the new Board to suffer an obvious incompetent, the last bit of baggage from OUS and Pernsteiner, rather than to do what most everyone hopes they will do: Replace Gottfredson with Scott Coltrane as interim, and get UO off to a fresh start.

Given Berdahl’s role in hiring Gottfredson (closed search, etc.) and the latest from FSU on closed searches and search firms, this all reminded me of an old post:

5/15/2012: Berdahl on his and my conflicts of interest and UO transparency crackdown. (See below for response from Pres Berdahl).

From Insidehighered.com:

Legislation in Illinois would bar public universities from using state funds, tuition revenue or student fees for search firms, The News-Gazette reported. The University of Illinois has spent almost $6 million on search firms over the last nine years, including funds on some searches that did not work out well. Critics question whether the spending is necessary, while board members say that search firms have recruited top talent.

The News-Gazette story is very balanced. We could ask our interim President Berdahl what he thinks about the costs and benefits of presidential search firms, but he seems to have a conflict of interest:

 

 

He didn’t report this on his Oregon Government Ethics Commission Verified Statement of Economic Interest – must not have made the 10% income threshold, which I’m guessing would be about $100,000.

After I posted to above, interim President Berdahl emailed me asking that I add the following response from him:

Bill:
The following is a comment that I tried to submit to UOMatters in response to your suggestion that I have conflicts of interest.  Since the comments are limited to 4,000 characters, UOMatters would not accept it.

Despite your campaign of innuendo, I have nothing to hide.

Bob

Berdhal’s comment:

At last week’s Senate meeting, I suggested that Professor Harbaugh had a conflict of interest because, as the largest single requester of public records, he also served as the chair of the Senate Transparency Committee, which has advised the administration on the university’s public records fee policy.  It is a straight-forward conflict of interest: the largest single user of a public service should not be in a position to try to influence the policy on fees for the provision of that public service.

Now, obviously irritated by the suggestion of his conflict of interest, Professor Harbaugh is responding by trying to suggest that I somehow have a conflict of interest. So, let me set out the facts for those readers of UOMatters who may be interested in facts.

Here is a summary of all of my activities and engagements since retiring from AAU, some of which have been compensated, others not.  All of these engagements involve commitments and obligations made prior to my becoming involved at UO, either as a consultant from mid-October to late December, or as interim president after December 28. I have undertaken no new commitments since becoming interim president.

In the summer of 2011, I was asked by AGB Search, an academic search firm associated with the Association of Governing Boards, to serve as a search consultant on their presidential search operations.  I agreed.  After coming to the UO in mid-October, I suspended that association.  I did not serve on any searches.  I received no compensation of any kind.  Because of a potential conflict of interest, I did not recommend that the UO presidential search committee even consider AGB Search to assist in the UO search.  These facts would have been easily determined had Professor Harbaugh been interested in them.

Because Professor Harbaugh has submitted a public record request of South Dakota State University for the details of my consulting there, let me shorten his wait by laying out the details here.  In September 2011, SDSU President Chicoine asked me to come to the campus to meet with faculty, students, administrators, and donors to assist in their strategic planning efforts leading up to a capital campaign.  He also asked that I deliver a public lecture.  In late November, I spent three days there.  I was paid $4,000. Knowing that I had graduated from Augustana College, President Chicoine arranged with Augustana President Oliver for me to spend two days there, again meeting with students and faculty and delivering a public lecture.  Augustana provided a $2,000 honorarium which I subsequently donated to the college.

In September 2011, I spent a week consulting with faculty and administrators at the University of Chile.  I received no compensation other than my expenses.

In my economic interest statement I also disclosed, as I had to Chancellor Pernsteiner and the OSBHE before accepting the interim presidency, that I have served as a member of the Board of Directors of Lam Research Corporation, a semi-conductor equipment company in Fremont, CA, since being elected to that board in 2001.  In 2011 I received a retainer of $60,000 and restricted units of stock.  I am the lead independent director and chair of the nominating and governance committee.  I was also elected to the Board of Directors of ACT, a non-profit academic testing service, in 2011.  I received $11,500 in 2011 for service on that board.

In April 2012 I spoke at the annual meeting of CASE, the organization of university foundation directors and development officers.  This was a commitment that I made last fall prior to my coming to UO.  I received no compensation for this address.

I am a member of the Commission on the Humanities and Social Sciences of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. This commission has met three times since the summer of 2011, once, last month, since I became interim president.  I am also a member of the Policy and Global Affairs Commission of the National Academy of Sciences.  My schedule has not permitted me to attend the meeting of this group.  Neither of these assignments is compensated.

I do not believe any of these activities involve a conflict of interest.

[Interim President Bob Berdahl]

I’ve got nothing against people making money – far from it – but for completeness, the Forbes.com report on the LAM Directorship is here. The “restricted units of stock”mentioned by Berdahl above total about $800,000 from 2007-2010, total payments about $1 million, 2011 is not yet listed.

Berdahl says of my participation on the Senate Transparency Committee:

It is a straight-forward conflict of interest: the largest single user of a public service should not be in a position to try to influence the policy on fees for the provision of that public service.

But Berdahl has no problem with AD Rob Mullens and GC Randy Geller trying to influence this policy, just to mention a few people on the supply-side of UO public records. Yet one of the reasons President Lariviere removed responsibility for public records responses from the General Counsel’s office and set up a new office with direct reporting to the president was the conflict of interest between the job of making public records public and the job of providing legal advice and defense to the university. This conflict of interest led to the firing of Melinda Grier, and the $2.3 million Bellotti payoff, to provide one well documented and expensive example.

I don’t think making a lot of public records requests and posting the records online constitutes a conflict of interest. I’ve been transparent about explaining my role in those few public records complaints that have come before the STC. The STC’s policy recommendations on the $200 fee waiver were enthusiastically supported by Dave Hubin, the recording of the meeting is here. I’ll also add that I receive no compensation for running UO Matters, except for the all-to-rare bottle of donated scotch.

The real issue here is very simple. I’ve posted a lot of public records about UO and UO athletics, many of them pretty embarrassing to the central administration. Richard Lariviere’s September 2011 public records reforms made it easier for me to do that. Rob Mullens and Randy Geller want to make it harder, and they’ve found a helpful partner in Bob Berdahl.

University president says unprepared professors should be shot

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This would be U of Iowa President J. Bruce Harreld, speaking at a staff meeting. The Chronicle has the story here. Apparently Mr. Harreld, a former businessman, consultant, and HBS adjunct, also believes there is only “one way” to prepare lessons.

Harreld was brought to Iowa by Parker Search, the same firm that Connie Ballmer hired for the search which brought us Mike Schill. I haven’t run a poll lately, but I think it’s been obvious from day one that Ms Ballmer got us the pick of the litter.

But Iowa’s public records office is being far more transparent with the emails than UO would be. My favorite is this admirably blunt one to Harreld:

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At UO, AVP for Collaboration Chuck Triplett could go after Ms Gardinier for sending this email, which clearly violates his UO Code of Ethics by not fostering a “civil, respectful and nurturing environment”. Last month I asked Triplett to explain how he intended to enforce the Code. He never responded, so I can only hope use of deadly force is off the table even for repeat offenders like me.

Open U of Iowa presidential search gets a bit contentious

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Parker Executive Search, the same firm that ran UO’s search, is in charge. In comparison to UO, the Iowa search team had a full complement of faculty, selected by the faculty senate and not by the administration. And they’re bringing 4 candidates to campus, including the sitting president of Oberlin and the provosts of Ohio State and Tulane. The 4th is a former VP for IBM with no academic experience, and apparently that and the fact that Parker dissolved the committee before the campus visits, apparently to limit faculty input to the board, has some faculty upset. Story here, links to Parker’s work at UO here.

UO names Michael Schill, U Chicago Law Dean, as President

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4/15/2015 updates: Schill on shared governance, from his 2013 interview at UW-Madison, here:

5. Previous chancellors of this university have had contentious relations with the Faculty Senate. Assuming that natural tension between Fac Senate and the Chancellor’s office exists, how do you expect to relate with faculty politically?

There is absolutely no reason that there has to be “tension” or a difficult relationship between the Faculty Senate and the chancellor’s office. The reason that faculty participate in shared governance isn’t because they want to fight with the chancellor. It is because they want to make the university better. That is also the objective of the chancellor. I think that the beauty of shared governance is that when differences exist-and they are as likely to exist among faculty as much as between the faculty and the chancellor-the differences can be resolved collegially through discussion, debate and, ultimately, compromise. The most important thing is to treat each other with respect and good will.

Thanks to “Geezer” for the link, in the comments.

8:55 PM updates:

Edward Russo has an informative story in the RG here.

12:11 PM updates:

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UC webpage here.

One mention in the Chronicle – he likes Coase. Good sign.

He’s got a pro-transparency bent. ATL, here:

I’m really delighted about our initiative to provide transparency on employment data. We are very proud of our employment stats and are delighted to release them in detail. I hope that publicizing this information on our website will encourage other law schools to report their statistics with the same level of granularity and with equal candor. I should note that Yale Law School already makes this data available on its website, and we have adopted their template for our own reporting.

The frequently cantankerous Brian Leiter was wildly enthusiastic when Chicago hired him from UCLA:

It really gives me great pleasure to announce that Michael Schill, a leading scholar in the areas of property, real estate law, and housing policy, who has been Dean of the law school at UCLA since 2004, will succeed Saul Levmore as Dean of the University of Chicago Law School on January 1, 2010. Before moving to UCLA, Dean Schill taught at NYU and Penn for many years, and is no doubt well-known to thousands of current law students and young lawyers as co-author of the leading casebook on property.

Schill has been, by any measure, a phenomenally successful Dean at UCLA: recruiting faculty from tenured posts at NYU, Virginia and Chicago; retaining faculty in the face of offers from Harvard, Texas, and Michigan; doubling the number of endowed chairs at the law school, and nearly doubling alumni participation in annual giving. Only rarely does one encounter a Dean who gets such rave reviews from his faculty. UCLA has, of course, been one of the nation’s top law schools for decades, but Dean Schill will leave the school in probably its strongest and most competitive position ever. My colleagues and I are fortunate, indeed, that he will take the helm here, and we look forward to welcoming him to Chicago.

11:40 AM 4/14/2015: Williamette Week has the scoop, here.

The University of Oregon will name Michael H. Schill, currently the dean of the University of Chicago Law School, as the university’s new president today, WW has learned.

Schill replaces interim president Scott Coltrane, who has served since August 2014.

The top spot at the state’s flagship university has been in near constant flux in recent years. After a long national search, Richard Lariviere replaced longtime President Dave Frohnmayer in July 2009. Lariviere’s aggressive approach alienated the Oregon University System board and they fired him in November 2011.

Michael Gottfredson replaced Lariviere but then resigned abruptly last August after two years on the job and barely a month after a newly independent board took responsibility for university governance.

Here is Schill’s bio from his homepage on the University of Chicago website:

Michael H. Schill is the Dean and Harry N. Wyatt Professor of Law at the University of Chicago Law School. Prior to joining the University of Chicago in 2010, Dean Schill served as the Dean of the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law from 2004 to 2009. His other faculty appointments include tenured positions as Professor of Law and Urban Planning at New York University and Professor of Law and Real Estate at the University of Pennsylvania.

Dean Schill is a nationally recognized expert in property, real estate and housing law and policy. He is the author or co-author of three books and over 40 scholarly articles. His work includes studies of the determinants of value in condominium and cooperative housing, the impacts of housing programs on property values, the enforcement of Fair Housing laws, mortgage securitization and the deregulation of housing markets. His casebook, Property, co-authored with James Krier and Greg Alexander is the best-selling casebook used in American law schools.

In 2004, Dean Schill founded the Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy at New York University. Under his and subsequent leadership the Furman Center has become one of the nation’s leading research centers on housing and the built environment.

Dean Schill serves on several nonprofit boards and civic bodies including Argonne National Laboratory, ITHAKA, the Chicago Innovation Exchange, and the Housing Preservation Compact of Chicago.

Before beginning his career as a professor, Dean Schill served as Law Clerk to the Honorable Marvin Katz of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and was a real estate attorney at the law firm of Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver and Jacobson. He graduated in 1980 with an A.B. in Public Policy from Princeton University and a J.D. from the Yale Law School.

Emergency Board meeting announcement here. Press conference at 12:30 in the Alumni center lobby.

Some questions to ask:

1) What commitments for new resources has the new President has been able get from the board – e.g. Phil Knight’s $1B with no athletic strings?

2) Will be the presidential transition team include the usual lawyers and “Executive Leadership Team” members who advised Gottfredson’s debacle, or will the new president formally include union and Senate leadership?

The comments are open – please add your proposed questions.

Presidential search down to Four

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Rich Read of the Oregonian interviews search Chair Connie Ballmer:

… Conceivably, the board could toss out all four finalists and instruct the search committee to conduct another round of recruitment and requests for nominations. But Ballmer said search committee members “feel great” about the current four finalists, and she hopes to have a president picked in weeks, not months.

Presumably the bargaining by the finalists will include asking the trustees what resources they will secure for the new President, to make their first few years a success. The $1B Knight donation, and exactly what strings will be attached, would seem to be the first question.

Meanwhile no word on what the transition team will look like. The new president will need to quickly figure out how to develop a good working relationship with the faculty – something the current Johnson Hall dwellers seem constitutionally incapable of. Unfortunately they’ll be the ones controlling access.

UO President search now down to the semi-finalists

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Not clear how many will also be applying for the U of Iowa job – a competing search also run by Parker.

From a helpful member of the sham Advisory Committee, which will not get to meet the candidates, or even meet with the real Search Committee, before the BOT convenes in executive session to hire one of them and then bring them to campus as UO’s new President, with 1.5 units of faculty buy-in.

3/20/15 – Advisory Committee will gain access to semifinalists (6-8 candidates) on paper and make recommendations to the Search Committee

3/30/15 – Advisory Committee meets to discuss semifinalists and make recommendations to the Search Committee (maybe 3/31/15)

4/1/15 & 4/2/15 – Search Committee does first round interviews with semifinalists off campus

By the end of April – Search Committee’s recommendations of finalists to the UOBOT for second round of interviews and approval and announcement to the UO Campus Community

We were told this process information is public and can be shared with our constituents.

Real Search Committee, with 2 Moffitts, 1.5 faculty, and 0 students, here.

Sham Advisory Committee, here.

Compare this with the standard AAU type hiring process as used by Iowa, here:

Either UO has a new president, or Parker Search’s Laurie Wilder lied to us

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Update: I’ve been told that Laurie Wilder asked the UO Board for permission to get involved in a second search.

3/19/2015: She seemed so honest, when she talked to the Senate that afternoon:

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3/19/2015 update: I distinctly remember Parker Executive Search’s President Laurie Wilder saying, while sitting there with Connie Ballmer, that UO would get an exclusive: Parker would not take on another presidential search for an AAU university while they were working on the UO search.

But last week the Daily Iowan reported that the University of Iowa had also hired Parker to find them a new president, also in February, for $200K + expenses:

The search for the next University of Iowa president will soon be in full swing.

Jean Robillard, the UI vice president for Medical Affairs and head of the Presidential Search Committee, announced at the state Board of Regents meeting in Iowa City on Wednesday that the panel would have its first meeting on March 25. …

Regent President Bruce Rastetter said the committee’s first official meeting with Parker Executive Search — a firm the regents hired whose duty is to define the goals of the search, develop specifications for the presidential position, create a timeline, and be heavily involved in the interview process — will mostly likely take place in late April or early May. …

The regents announced they had chosen Parker in mid-February. 

Iowa has been in the AAU since 1909, so I see three possibilities:

  1. Laurie Wilder lied to the UO faculty and Ms Ballmer,
  2. UO was kicked out of the AAU in February, or
  3. the Board picked a new President in February and they forgot to tell the faculty.

UO’s search has been botched from day one, when Chuck Lillis snuck secret rules, with minimal faculty participation past the board. Faculty Trustee Susan Gary should have helped him avoid the resulting embarrassment, but she was asleep at the wheel as usual, and isn’t even on the search committee.

The Iowa search committee has 21 members. Seven of them are faculty, including the president and president elect of their faculty senate:

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There are also two students – undergraduate and graduate. Chuck Lillis’s search committee has no students, and more Moffitts than faculty.

Maybe it’s time for the Board to give it up, and beg Coltrane to keep the job?

2/11/2015 update on 9AM search meeting. Trustee Connie Ballmer, Parker princip Laurie Wilder, some people from the search committees. Only others were me and maybe 2 other faculty, one or two OA’s and staff, and Diane Dietz and RG photographer Chris Pietsch.

I have to say that I was surprised and impressed by Ms Ballmer’s and Ms Wilder’s willingness to answer some tough questions. Wilder got into the nuts and bolts of what candidates ask her (e.g. what sort of board does UO have? Control-freaks, laissez-faire, etc.) The Senate is not going to like some of the answers we’re going to get this afternoon about the process, but personally, I’m no longer quite as paranoid about the likely outcome.

2/10/2015: UO Board’s Parker Executive Search firm is not exactly top shelf

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How to Raise a University’s Profile: Pricing and Packaging

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With the UO Trustees on the lookout for a new president, a reminder of the snake-oil salesmen that will likely be applying for the job seems in order. The NYT has a hagiographic piece by Kevin Carey on former president Stephen Trachtenberg and the rise of George Washington University, here:

The George Washington University came with some assets, most importantly a prime location just a few blocks from the White House, but it had little money and suffered from an inferiority complex. “I was given an institution and told, ‘Make this place better,’ ” Mr. Trachtenberg said, “ ‘and by the way, be embarrassed that you’re not Georgetown.’ ”

Everyone wanted something from him: better facilities, better colleagues, better students — and all of those things cost money. He had no base of rich alumni like the Ivies or Georgetown did. Fund-raising was a chicken-and-egg problem: Rich people wanted to support something that was already excellent, but excellence as they understood it required millions of dollars to buy.

Mr. Trachtenberg, however, understood something crucial about the modern university. It had come to inhabit a market for luxury goods. People don’t buy Gucci bags merely for their beauty and functionality. They buy them because other people will know they can afford the price of purchase. The great virtue of a luxury good, from the manufacturer’s standpoint, isn’t just that people will pay extra money for the feeling associated with a name brand. It’s that the high price is, in and of itself, a crucial part of what people are buying.

It turns this is mostly bullshit. Paul Campos of LawyersGunsandMoney does the fact-checking, here:

This, again, turns out to be not merely untrue, but an inversion of the truth. When Trachtenberg arrived, George Washington was already one of the richest universities in the nation, with an endowment larger than that possessed by nearly 99% of the nation’s institutions of higher learning. Specifically, in 1987 GW’s endowment of $216.25 million placed it 46th among America’s colleges and universities, ahead of, among about 4,000 other institutions, Georgetown.

What fiscal magic did Trachtenberg work during his two decades at the helm? By the time he left, George Washington had the 64th largest endowment in the nation. In other words, the school’s endowment was actually smaller, in comparative terms (and after all, Trachtenberg’s claims regarding his supposed accomplishments are explicitly about the changes in the school’s comparative status during his tenure), at the end of his presidency than it had been when he took office.

Here’s hoping our Parker Executive Search firm is just as skeptical and rigorous on the fact-checking. The BOT has no experience with presidential searches, their search committee has minimal faculty participation, and they are going to make the hire before the campus even knows our new president’s name.

Campus Alert! UO Senate to meet at 3PM today, 115 Lawrence

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Update: Scott Greenstone has a brief report in the ODE, here, with a subhead that pretty much captures how little JH has done on sexual violence prevention:

Coltrane promises the UO is deciding how to fight sexual assault

President Coltrane, do we have your firm commitment on your promise to decide something, someday?

My Summary:

1) Ballmer and Linder explain search process, rationale for closed search. Many skeptical questions, but all in all I think the Senate buys the closed search idea, with reluctance.
2) Marcus explains GradGate – frankly I’m still confused as to how this could have happened.
3) Coltrane explains why he hasn’t done anything about the sexual assault prevention efforts yet.

Questions for Coltrane about LibraryGate, about why he’s expanding greek life given the sexual assault problems, and whether or not he’ll support fundraising to reduce the burden of athletic ticket lottery on UO students. Coltrane evades all.

4) Policy on policies: Good discussion, Bonine has saved the Senate’s authority once again. Passes unanimously with thanks to Coltrane and Bronet for working so cooperatively.

5) Gender neutral bathrooms. Students make convincing pitch for this. Motion gives thorough explanation for why this is an important issue. Lots of discussion, Senate wants to get this right. Amendments about locks, then passes unanimously w/ applause.

Senate to meet Feb 11: Budget, Pres search, Policy on policies

Regarding the search, two of the Parker principals, Laurie C. Wilder, President, and Porsha L. Williams, Vice President, will be on campus Wednesday to answer questions about the Presidential Search. At the Senate, and also Wed, 9-10 in the Law School’s 4th floor Lewis Lounge room. This Diane Dietz story from last September does a good job describing the machinations by Chuck Lillis and Angela Wilhelms that led to Lillis getting sole authority to pick a single finalist for the job.

Regarding the budget, presumably there will be a report from the Senate Budget Committee on what they have been able to learn about the consequences of Brad Shelton’s decision to centralize funding decisions, and the recent cut in graduate student funding.

Senate Meeting Agenda – February 11, 2015

Live video feed.

115 Lawrence, 3:00-5:00 p.m.

3:00 pm    1.   Call to Order

3:00 pm    2.   Approval of Minutes 2.1 January 14, 2015

3:05 pm    3.   State of the University

3.1       Remarks by Interim President Coltrane with questions

3.2       Remarks by Parker Executive Search Firm with questions

3.3       University Budget Update

3:45 pm    4.   New Business

4.1       Motion (Resolution): Resolution to Create and Make Accessible More Gender-Inclusive Restrooms on the University of Oregon Campus; Samantha Cohen (Senator; Undergraduate, Family and Human Services), Elle Mallon (Undergraduate, Psychology), Atticus Kazarian (Undergraduate, Linguistics), Miles Sisk (Undergraduate, Political Science), LGBTQA, Theta Pi Sigma; ASUO Executive; The Women’s Center

4.2       Motion (Policy Adoption): Revision of the University’s “Policy on Policies”; Senate Executive Committee

4.3       Motion (Legislation): Committee Requirements with Moderate Revisions, Slate 5 (Tenth-Year Review); Senate Executive Committee

4:55 pm    5.   Open Discussion

4:55 pm    6.   Reports

4:55 pm    7.   Notice(s) of Motion

4:55 pm    8.   Other Business

5:00 pm    9.   Adjournment

NOTE: The Policy Tracker may be viewed here.

Parker Executive Search execs Wilder & Williams to answer questions

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2/9/2015 reminder: Two of the Parker principals, Laurie C. Wilder, President, and Porsha L. Williams, Vice President, will be on campus Wednesday to answer questions about the Presidential Search:

9-10 in the Law School’s 4th floor Lewis Lounge room, then 3-4 at the Senate meeting.

Lewis Lounge holds about 40, so if you get there early please save me a seat.

This search has been in trouble since the day Chuck Lillis and Angela Wilhelms snuck a motion by the board giving Lillis sole authority to pick one finalist. We’ll see if Parker can explain the plan to save it.

2/6/2014:  The New York Times has a story on a problematic previous search by this firm, for Rutgers, here.

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BOT posts description of their ideal UO president – no higher ed experience required

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The full document is here. My take on it is very positive guarded. It emphasizes the need to stay in AAU, gets specific, emphasizes scholarship and even mentions transparency. On the other hand, as a commenter notes, it opens the door to hiring a president with no academic qualifications or experience:

… The questions and challenges facing the next president are similar to those facing other public
flagship institutions across the nation. How does the UO continue to fulfill its public mission with
low levels of state support? How does it preserve and enhance quality while at the same time
maintaining affordability? And some questions and challenges are important for the UO to address
in the context of its place as a nationally-recognized research university. How does it address
disparities between the UO and its AAU peers in faculty salaries, ratio of tenure- to non-tenure
related faculty, student/faculty ratio, and other areas critical to continued excellence and academic
competitiveness? …

The following leadership characteristics are essential for the UO’s president:

• A passion for public higher education.
• A demonstrated record of substantive leadership and accomplishment within higher
education, government, research, philanthropic, business or service environments with
multilayered constituencies.
• An exemplary record of scholarly, professional, and/or individual achievement.
• An understanding and appreciation for the research culture of an AAU institution, the
importance of graduate education, and the importance of working at the frontiers of
knowledge creation and dissemination. …

• Demonstrated success in attracting financial resources—public and private—to support the
University’s strategic direction and ambitious goals in an era of declining public support;
and a proven record of forming productive relationships with donors, alumni, and other
external constituents.
• A collegial leadership style marked by a commitment to upholding academic values and
principles of shared governance, a collaborative approach to problem-solving, and a highly
communicative and respectful relationship with faculty, students, administrative staff,
classified employees, alumni, and other stakeholders.

• A fair, firm, and compassionate leader with a reputation for transparency, integrity and high
ethical standards who will vigorously promote excellence within the institution. …
• Must demonstrate a lack of pretension, a good sense of humor, and a passion for conveying
that this is a great moment for the University of Oregon and its future.

Sounds like Scott Coltrane.

 

Trustees to appoint Duck Athletic Director Rob Mullens as next UO President

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11/6/2014: Trustees to appoint Duck Athletic Director Rob Mullens as next UO President

Diane Dietz has the story in the RG, here. I know I’ve written a few unkind words about Dr. Mullens in the past, but let me be the first to say that I believe he has the necessary fundraising connections, and an unusually creative mind when it comes to finances and academic matters.

11/3/2013 Update: UO Trustees ask The People’s help in choosing next Great Leader

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Live-blog of UO Senate meeting. Connie Ballmer on search. TF on Sex Assault

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News reports on Task Force recommendations:

Alexandra Wallachy in the Daily Emerald:

University Senate was action-packed and attendance-packed at its meeting on Wednesday, Oct. 22.

The Senate Task Force to Address Sexual Violence and Survivor Support co-chair Carol Stabile presented the task force’s recommendations at the meeting held in Lawrence 115.

The recommendation is titled “Twenty Students Per Week,” addressing the statistic that one in five women is assaulted during college according to the Center for Disease Control and the White House.

“The problem of widespread campus sexual violence is not a new one,” Stabile and the report said. “But national attention to the problem, inspired by campus activists, scholars, lawyers, politicians and the leadership provided by the White House has broken the silence and secrecy upon which sexual violence thrives.”

Stabile emphasized the role of athletics and fraternity and sorority life in sexual violence.

“We cannot ignore the fact that, despite the relatively small number of students directly involved in their activities,” Stabile and the report said, “Athletics and Fraternity and Sorority Life (FSL) play disproportionately powerful roles in facilitating or tolerating conditions in which sexual violence occurs on campus.”

Andrew Greif in the Oregonian:

“We must not be reluctant to name sexual violence or to discuss its prevalence, even when doing so entails investigating and addressing problems within organizations that contribute to the social and cultural life of the university,” the UO Senate report states. “We cannot ignore the fact that, despite the relatively small number of students directly involved in their activities, Athletics and Fraternity and Sorority Life (FSL) play disproportionately powerful roles in facilitating or tolerating conditions in which sexual violence occurs on campus.

Josephine Woolington in the RG:

A suspension of plans to expand the number of sorority and fraternity chapters on the University of Oregon campus is among 23 recommendations presented this afternoon to the University Senate by a task force charged with studying the UO’s sexual violence prevention efforts.

The nearly two dozen recommendations are intended to improve the UO’s prevention and support policies for victims. The changes would cost the university at least $500,000.

Other recommendations put forth by the task force include forming a sorority and fraternity sexual assault task force; creating an Office to Address Sexual and Gender Violence; funding a campus “climate” survey to assess rates of victimization; developing proposals to mandate that all students take classes on gender, sexuality and social inequity; and empowering the University Senate Intercollegiate Athletics Committee to address sexual violence issues within the UO athletic department.

115 Lawrence, 3:00-5:00 p.m.

3:00 pm     1.   Call to Order

3:00 pm     2.   Approval of Minutes

3:00 pm     3.   State of the University

3.1       Connie Ballmer, Chair of the Presidential Search Committee Presentation and Discussion

Very good sign that the Board is willing to talk with the faculty transparently about this. Presents basics from http://trustees.uoregon.edu/presidentialsearch. Emphasizes that we have a stable board, good interim president good place to start a search. [Be better with a big academic donation in the bag, instead of all this Duck nonsense, but it’s still good.]

Student Q: Why all these committees if board decides? Which committee really has power? A: The search committee. Q: Why no students on search committee? A: None: Q: Why 2 Moffitts but no students? A: I trust the Moffitts.

Bonine Q: What’s your view of the role of faculty, Senate, board w.r.s.t. shared governance? A: I’ll defer to Chuck Lillis.

Student Q: How long is the term of a president supposed to be? A: 7 to 12 years as goal.

3:20 pm     4.   New Business

4.1       Presentation of Recommendations from Senate Task Force to Address Sexual Violence and Survivor Support (Carol Stabile and Randy Sullivan, Co-Chairs and Robert Kyr, University Senate President)

REPORT HERE, powerpoint summary here.

President Kyr thanks members, especially Carol Stabile. Huge amount of work.

[Blogging will be light, I’m listening.] Professor Stabile calls out athletics and greek life in particular, notes the “wall of secrecy” around athletics, calls for them to cooperate with IAC. Calls for a suspension of plans to expand fraternities and sororities.

4.2       Strategic Planning Process, Revision of the Academic Plan, and University Priorities (Interim President Scott Coltrane and Acting Provost Frances Bronet)

Coltrane thanks Senate TF, says he will consider their proposals along with the upcoming report from the ~$200K euphemistically named “President’s Task Force”

On to “Achieving Competitive Excellence” report. Same thing presented to BOT a few months back.

4.3       Motion (Resolution): GTFF Bargaining; Regina Psaki, Professor (Romance Languages) & UO Senator

Passed unanimously. How can a university with AAU pretensions, in desperate need of more grad students, give them the shaft over pay and benefits?

Giant waste of administrative time, effort, and money. Cut a deal and let’s all get back to work – Interim President Coltrane.

5:00 pm     5.   Open Discussion

5:00 pm     6.   Reports

5:00 pm     7.   Notice(s) of Motion

5:00 pm      8.  Other Business

5:00 pm     9.   Adjournment