Tomlin course, Bean’s accomplishments, Provost search

Say what you will about former VPAA Russ Tomlin, at least he is teaching courses for his 600 hours, instead of taking the easy way out with the usual administrative sinecure for retiring VPs:
 

It’s going to be an interesting list of guest speakers. Maybe UO’s General Counsel Emerita, Melinda Grier?

Speaking of sinecures, Sam Stites has a piece in the ODE on Bean. Not clear when he’ll actually teach: my guess is he collects his $320K (plus beamer?) for next year doing some minor administrative make-work jobs:

“I’ve been honored to be able to serve in this position, but I want to return to help develop the next opportunities for the University to improve its AAU ratings and applying my experience from my time at Michigan,” Bean said.

But I suppose it’s possible the B-School pushes out Kees and brings him back as Dean. Is it? You can always count on Frohnmayer to find something kind to say about a fellow administrator:

Former UO president and current law professor Dave Frohnmayer expressed his gratitude toward Bean’s tenure as provost. Frohnmayer said that without Bean’s Big Ideas project — a campaign to elicit ideas for academic and research improvement in an open forum style — the UO would have missed major opportunities for programs that may not have surfaced otherwise. 

And in the article Nathan Tublitz announces a follow up to his wonderfully successful Senate motion on a performance review of Bean: a motion for an open, faculty led search. The last open search got us Linda Brady. 2/25/13.

VP Russ Tomlin open forum:

Update, 4/27/2011: I went to today’s faculty forum, moderated by Larry Singell. It was well attended, and people seemed relatively open about speaking their minds. The review committee made it very clear that they would not report quotes or attribute statements to particular speakers, and that people were free to email them with more views. I believe them.

4/26/2011: Some people have told me they do not feel free to speak their minds on the VP for Academic Affairs in public – particularly given that they will have to sign in first – see bottom.

I asked, and I’m told that these open meetings will go forward as scheduled:

Dear Campus Community,

The Committee overseeing the review of Senior Vice Provost Russ Tomlin (i.e., Larry Singell, Dennis Howard, and Kassia Dellabough) invite you to an open forum where you are encouraged to come and share your views. 

There are two forums scheduled:

FACULTY forum
Date:                     Wednesday April 27
Time:                     3:30 – 5:00pm
Location:              McKenzie 375

OA and CLASSIFIED forum
Date:                     Wednesday May 4
Time:                     3:30 – 5:00pm
Location:              McKenzie 375

We would like candid participation from as many as possible in order to gather the most useful feedback.

Please note, in order for your comments to make it in the official record, participants will be required to sign their name into a log.  Nonetheless, the committee will not attach comments to a particular individual in our report and will treat the information shared in the open forum the same manner as Promotion and Tenure documents.  The objective of the forum is to engage in open conversation so that the committee can record the general sentiments consistent with a performance review and synthesize themes of strengths and areas in need of improvement.