“Softball”. No kidding:
IAAC Agenda
Monday, February 25 | 2:30 PM
Johnson Hall Conference Room
Update on NCAA legislation (Tim Gleason)
Softball (Tim Gleason)
Student athlete health and wellness philosophy, sexual health/assault, healthy relationships, transitions to/from college, etc (Katie Harper)
Kelli Matthews
UO | SOJC | PR
You’d think a grown man like Gleason would have better things to do with his time, but apparently not. Presumably this comes out of this alleged track and field violation. No word yet on how much UO paid its outside lawyers to handle this, but rumor has it that the academic side will foot the bill.
And how’s this for self-contradiction:
“Athletic eligibility may never be a factor in any academic decision.”
“In classes with substantial class participation, project or lab work, appropriate accommodations may not be possible. In those instances, the student-athlete should be informed that the course is not a good fit in a term with significant travel.”
——————————
To: UO Faculty
From: Intercollegiate Athletic Advisory Committee (IAAC)
RE: NCAA Academic Misconduct and Academic Extra Benefits
Student-athletes at the University of Oregon (UO) and all other member universities in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) are required to follow a number of rules and regulations that may not apply to other students. While most NCAA rules do not involve faculty in any significant way, the current rules concerning “academic misconduct” and “academic extra benefits” create the real potential for faculty to unintentionally contribute to violations that could jeopardize a student-athlete’s athletic career and result in sanctions against the university and athletic department coaches and staff.
In this memo, the IAAC briefly details these regulations and provides guidance concerning compliance with them. Please note that this information is shared with a full commitment to academic freedom and to the academic integrity of the University of Oregon. If you have questions now or later, please contact Tim Gleason, the UO Faculty Athletics Representative.
Academic Extra Benefits
Under NCAA rules, an academic extra benefit is “[s]ubstantial assistance or the granting of an exception that is not generally available to an institution’s students, which results in the certification of a student-athlete’s eligibility to participate in intercollegiate athletics or receive financial aid.” A recent rule change extended the application of this rule to all university faculty, staff, and student employees. It is now possible for a university employee with good intentions and no connection to the athletic department to provide a student-athlete with an impermissible academic extra benefit.
There are two “bright lines” to keep in mind concerning academic extra benefits:
Areas of special concern:
Academic Misconduct
At the UO, “‘Academic Misconduct’ means the violation of university policies involving academic integrity.” Examples include: intentional tampering with grades, resubmitting assignments for more than one class without the permission of the professor; intentionally taking part in obtaining or distributing any part of a test that has not been administered; cheating; plagiarism; knowingly furnishing false information to a university official; and fabrication.
While academic misconduct at the UO primarily focuses on student behaviors, it is possible that an instructor of record who engaged in fraudulent behavior, such as intentionally awarding a false grade or giving credit to a student based on the work of others in order to protect athletic eligibility, would be in violation of university policy. Such behavior may also be viewed as academic misconduct under NCAA rules.
In addition, it is possible for an instructor of record to unintentionally violate the NCAA’s impermissible academic extra benefits rules. There is a real potential for an NCAA violation that could result in sanctions for the university if, for example, an instructor of record knowingly or unknowingly failed to follow university policies concerning grading or believed that a student had violated the academic integrity provisions of the student conduct code and failed to follow university policies for reporting violations.
Student-athlete travel and class attendance/participation
Team travel will result in student-athletes missing classes in terms when their sport is in season. Because they are traveling for university-sponsored activities, faculty are strongly encouraged to make pedagogically sound and justifiable accommodations that will enable the student-athletes to be successful in the classroom, just as we would encourage such accommodations for other students traveling on university-sponsored activities. However, this request has limits and conditions:
Late Assignments
Student-athletes have very demanding schedules as they juggle athletic and academic demands. They are, of course, not unique on today’s college campuses. Many students are juggling competing demands. Student-athletes should be held to the same standards as other students who have professional or family obligations or who are traveling on university business.
Grade Changes
Any grade change for a student-athlete must be based on consistent criteria applied to all students in a class and should follow the guidelines and procedures for such grade changes published by the registrar.
——————————
Dear UO Faculty and Staff,
I am sending along an important memorandum to you that was written by members of the University of Oregon’s Intercollegiate Athletic Advisory Committee about NCAA rules as they pertain to academic misconduct and academic extra benefits for student-athletes.
While most NCAA rules do not involve faculty, the IAAC wants to make sure our faculty understand how these two areas can impact decisions you might make regarding the treatment of student athletes. Please take the time to read this important memo. If you have any questions, please contact Tim Gleason, the university’s Faculty Athletics Representative.
Thank you for your time and attention to this important matter.
Sincerely,
Jayanth Banavar
Provost and Senior Vice President
1/1/2018:
Andrew Greif has the news here. Oderinde put 3 UO students in the hospital and kept his job for a year anyway. I’m not sure if Duck FAR Tim Gleason ever gave up the public records on his “investigation” of Oderinde. Say, I wonder if Dr. Skaggs ever got his Sports Medicine Board Certification?
3/10/2017:
More national publicity for UO, from CBS Sports: UO claims the Duck coach who put 3 students in hospital is “faculty”
The unregulated world of strength coaches and college football’s killing season
When three Oregon football players were hospitalized in January following a strenuous workout, they were being led by a strength coach certified from a track and field coaches association.
For a $245 fee, the U.S. Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) offers a 21-hour strength training course to become a certified NCAA strength coach in any sport. By comparison, the widely-used Collegiate Strength and Conditioning Coaches Association (CSCCA) requires 30 times as much training — a 640-hour certification process.
According to CAHI, that track certification was all that was needed by Oregon football strength coach Irele Oderinde, who was suspended for one month due to the January workout.
… Oregon declined to provide a copy of Oderinde’s resume to CBS Sports since it is part of his faculty record. Oregon said faculty records cannot be released without an employee’s written permission, and Oderinde did not grant permission.
You can’t make this shit up.
11/28/2017 sort of live blog:
Membership, from https://senate.uoregon.edu/entry/?Committees=Intercollegiate%20Athletics%20Advisory%20Committee
Less than half the committee has bothered to show up. Rob Mullens, Lisa Peterson, Roger Thompson, and Dennis Galvan all seem to have better things to do.
Tim Gleason starts off with a rehash of the NCAA eligibility rules. This committee meets 6 times a year, and so far has spent most of each meeting reviewing the rules, instead of looking at data from UO student athletes, etc.
Right off the bat, Pres Schill, who seems to have his homework. catches Gleason – Mike Gottfredson’s pick for “Faculty Athletics Representative” – in a basic mistake about determination of academic misconduct with regard to the UNC case. Gleason starts backtracking.
Stolp, Gleason go on at length about what a great job they and the NCAA are doing. 36 minutes into the meeting and still nothing of substance.
1o minutes to go, they’re still talking about what a great job they do. Sorry, I’ve heard enough.
11/27/2017: In the Johnson Hall conference room. It’s a public meeting.
Lots of potentially troublesome matters to discuss, but if the past is any evidence this will be the usual set of softball questions followed by evasive answers from the administration’s “Faculty Athletics Representative” Tim Gleason, who doesn’t even have the contact information for the NCAA person in charge of taking faculty complaints – and who really, really hopes you’ll talk to him instead of the NCAA, so that he can investigate before deciding whether or not to tell the NCAA. Sure Tim.
On Sep 14, 2017, at 7:46 PM, UO Senate VP <[email protected]> wrote:
Hi Tim –
I’m writing to you in your role as UO’s NCAA FAR, to ask for your help in reporting a potential violation of the NCAA rules prohibiting differential academic treatment of student-athletes.
Specifically, I am looking for the name, address and phone number of the appropriate NCAA contact with whom to file such a report.
Thanks,
Bill Harbaugh
Economics Prof & Senate VP
University of Oregon
http://senate.uoregon.edu
On ThursdaySep 14, 2017, at 9:57 PM, Tim Gleason <[email protected]> wrote:
BIll,
It is the UO’s obligation to “to identify and report to the [NCAA] instances in which compliance has not been achieved” (2.8.1. Responsibility of the Institution).
I encourage you to share the information you have with me and with Jody Sykes, the UO Chief Compliance Officer so that the UO can fully investigate the circumstances and self-report any violation. It is our obligation to investigate; however absent more information we are unable to proceed. If there is a violation we will want to act immediately to correct the situation, so the sooner you can provide information the sooner we can move forward to correct any problem.
Of course, you are free to contact the NCAA enforcement staff directly.
All the best,
Tim
Tim Gleason
Professor of Journalism
Faculty Athletics Representative
Director, Ancil Payne Awards for Ethics in Journalism
On Sep 14, 2017, at 10:00 PM, UO Senate VP <[email protected]> wrote:
Thanks Tim, how would I go about contacting the NCAA enforcement staff directly?
Please send me their contact information.
Bill Harbaugh
On ThursdaySep 14, 2017, at 10:16 PM, Tim Gleason <[email protected]> wrote:
Bill,
The NCAA contact information on the website:
The National Collegiate Athletic Association
700 W. Washington Street
P.O. Box 6222
Indianapolis, Indiana 46206-6222
Phone: 317-917-6222
Fax: 317-917-6888
Tim
Tim Gleason
On Sep 14, 2017, at 10:19 PM, UO Senate VP <[email protected]> wrote:
Thanks Tim and Jody, but as I said I’m asking you for the name and the phone number of the appropriate NCAA person to report a potential UO violation to. Please send me that.
Bill Harbaugh
From: Tim Gleason <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: reporting a potential NCAA rules violation
Date: September 15, 2017 at 12:15:19 PM PDT
To: Senate Vice President <[email protected]>
Cc: Jody Sykes <[email protected]>
Bill,
Anyone from the enforcement staff will be able to assist you. UO does not have a specific contact within the NCAA. As noted in earlier email, the most efficient and best way to address any potential violation would be for you to provide us with any relevant information so that we can investigate and self-report as appropriate.
Tim
Tim Gleason
Professor of Journalism
Faculty Athletics Representative
Director, Ancil Payne Awards for Ethics in Journalism
Meanwhile Gleason – a journalism professor – is refusing to share his public records about various athletic matters with reporters unless they pay him first.
10/9/2017:
According to the date stamp, this report on some of Tim Gleason’s spending as the NCAA’s Faculty Athletics Representative was pulled on Sept 25th – and that was only after they’d claimed they didn’t have any BANNER records, and made me file another request. But Kevin Reed’s Public Records Office didn’t send this to me until Oct 6th:
And now they want $84.92 to explain how much more the academic side is paying to help do the NCAA cartel’s job:
10/06/2017
Dear Mr. Harbaugh:
The University of Oregon has received your public records request for “This is a public records request for records showing the expenditures of the Faculty Athletics Representative and his office, from July 1 2010 to the present” on 09/22/2017, attached. The office has at least some documents responsive to your request. With this email, the office is providing you with an estimate to respond to your requests.
Some records have been provided to you in response to your public records request 2018-PRR-072 for “…a BANNER reports showing the expenditures of the Faculty Athletic Representative and his office, from July 1 2010 to [9/13/2017]”. However, the University possesses additional records that are responsive to your current, more general, request
The office estimates the actual cost of responding to this request to be $84.92. Upon receipt of a check made payable to the University of Oregon for that amount, the office will proceed to locate, copy, and provide the records you have requested that are not exempt from disclosure. Your check may be sent to the attention of Office of Public Records, 6207 University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403-6207.
The university has received your request for a fee waiver for these records. The decision to waive or reduce fees is discretionary with the public body. After considering your request, the office does not consider that the totality of the circumstances you presented meets the standard for a fee waiver.
… Thank you for contacting us with your request.
Sincerely,
Office of Public Records
6207 University of Oregon | Eugene, OR 97403-6207
(541) 346-6823 | [email protected]
Meanwhile, it’s not clear where the HBO request for Gleason’s rhabdo docs is at. The PR office is way behind. Perhaps they’re busy with FBI search warrants?
9/22/2017: Apparently HBO has paid UO the $754.28 Tim Gleason wanted for the rhabdo docs, and presumably he’s now compiling them. I’m not sure if Gleason gets the money, or if it will go to his office and offset some of the cost to the academic budget of his FAR salary, and I’m still waiting for the docs showing just how much his FAR office is costing UO.
9/21/2017: On Sept 13th I made a simple public records request (at bottom of post) for an accounting report that would show how much money it’s costing the academic side for UO Journalism Prof Tim Gleason’s NCAA “Faculty Athletics Representative” office. Today I got a response denying my request on the grounds that there is no such record.
Perhaps he’s spending his time on Duck sports that pay him a bonus for “competing at the highest level of excellence.” Reporter Kenny Jacoby has the latest Duck athletic scandal in the Emerald, here:
Read the story for the really disturbing quotes, and a link to the courageous letter from UO’s former student-athletes. Here’s a snippet:
… [Former volleyball players] Crittenden and Kevorken said both talked to an athletic department official about their concerns in 2015 but Moore and Metro continued to coach.
… Crittenden said the purpose of her letter is not to “bash coaches,” but to tell the story she had previously kept quiet and encourage others to do the same. She said it’s time for athletic departments to stop being negligent when athletes come forward to them.
“I want other athletes who may be suffering in silence to know that their feelings are valid, their words are valid, and their stories matter,” she wrote.
Haylee Roberts, Canace Finley, Chloe Buckendahl and Maddie Magee were the other four players whose names and signatures appeared at the bottom of the letter to Schill and Mullens.
“We can rest easier knowing that the former coaches are no longer in a position to negatively impact young athletes and we no longer feel ashamed to identify ourselves as former Oregon Ducks,” they wrote.
This story came out just 30 minutes after the year’s second meeting of the President’s Intercollegiate Athletics Advisory Committee. Athletics Director Rob Mullens and President Mike Schill sat across from each other. Faculty Athletics Representative Tim Gleason was missing. IAAC Chair Andy Karduna was there along with 2 of the IAAC’s 8 faculty members. There was an hour long, rambling discussion of what to do about athletes who had to miss classes to travel to away games to earn money for the athletic department. Someone was supposed to have brought data on how many classes athletes miss, but they didn’t. No one asked anything about this, or any of the other recent Duck athletic scandals.
Meanwhile, Mullens’ volleyball coaches are still receiving public funds:
According to public records obtained by the Emerald, Moore and Metro will be paid according to their respective salaries through their resignation dates: May 15, 2017, and January 31, 2018, respectively.
2/24/2017: The Washington Post takes a break from their coverage of President Donald Trump’s decision to ban NYT reporters from his press briefings to pick up the story on Duck coach Willie Taggart’s decision to ban Oregonian reporter Andrew Greif, from UO student-journalist Kenny Jacoby:
The WaPo report is a bit sloppy though, labeling Tim Gleason as a UO journalism professor, rather than as the Duck’s well paid “Faculty” Athletics Representative.
2/23/2017: Coach Taggart’s feelings are hurt, so he won’t talk to reporter
I’d never realized that football coaches were such sensitive types. Trumpesque, even? Kenny Jacoby has the story in the Emerald:
Oregon’s new football coach is still upset over a Jan. 16 news report about an early season workout that sent three of his players to the hospital. The report resulted in the suspension of strength and conditioning coach Irele Oderinde for one month without pay.
Head coach Willie Taggart, whom Oregon hired to replace Mark Helfrich in December, said he is no longer speaking to The Oregonian reporter who broke the story, claiming that the reporter’s characterization of the workouts as “grueling” and “akin to military basic training” were inaccurate, unfair and directly contradicted what Taggart told the reporter before the story was written.
Andrew Greif, whose story broke the news about the players’ hospitalization, defended the piece, noting that multiple sources characterized the workouts as grueling and militaristic. He said UO spokespeople did not question those characterizations when he asked them to confirm the nature of the workouts.“When you’re not fair and honest, then to me that’s personal,” Taggart said. “When you do something that’s negative and it’s going to be personal, then I won’t have shit to do with you.” …
Uh, wait a minute, coach. The strength coach you hired put three of our students in the hospital for a week – and you’re mad at the *reporter* because he hurt your *feelings*?
Say what you will about cousin Jim, at least he’s not a crybaby. On the matter of actual harm, I wonder how much the Ducks are paying to settle with the student-athletes?
And speaking of trying to intimidate reporters, I wonder how the investigation of the Athletic Department’s threat to pull Mr. Jacoby’s press credentials is going.
8/9/2016: Her offense was the unforgivable one for an administrator: Making the boss, in this case UC system President Janet Napolitano, look stupid:
The report strongly disputes Linda Katehi’s repeated assertions that she was not involved in contracting with private companies to improve Davis’s online image and her own, both of which had been badly damaged by the pepper-spray incident five years ago. In conversations with Ms. Napolitano and interviews with the news media, the report states, Ms. Katehi “minimized her knowledge of and role in” the process. When Davis’s social-media efforts received negative attention from the news media, which suggested that the chancellor hoped to scrub from the internet information that was personally damaging to her reputation, Ms. Katehi told the president she “had nothing to do with the contracts, and that they were all handled by the UC Davis communications,” the report states. She made similar statements to The Sacramento Bee and The Chronicle of Higher Education. “The chancellor’s statements,” the report concludes, “were misleading, at best, or untruthful, at worst.”
… The report, which redacts some names, cites an unnamed person’s recollection that the chancellor “voiced frequent concerns” about her personal Wikipedia page and asked, “Why can’t you get me ‘off the Google?'”
Hey, it’s not like she paid a former journalism dean and strategic communicators to help write an anonymous letter on university letterhead attacking a professor for being “anti-university”.
4/15/2016 update: UC-Davis spent $175K on PR flacks and millions on “strategic communications” to scrub web, tout boss. UO paid twice that.
I received an email from VP for Communication Kyle Henley about my statement below regarding using the UO Foundation to hide public relations spending. He wants to make it absolutely clear that, on his watch, UO will not do what UC-Davis did. I’m glad to hear that, and given his work getting rid of 160over90 and remaking “Around the O” into something worth reading for information rather than laughs, I believe him. He also said that his office is not running any communications contracts through the Foundation, and that UO now has only a small $5-10K contract with Anna Richter-Taylor, to help write a crisis communications plan – which he offered to provide.
Obviously I agree that UO needs a crisis communications plan. But Anna Richter-Taylor seems like just the sort of person *not* to help write it, given how badly UO botched past crises, when she was consulting for us. And while I’m happy to hear that Henley’s office is not using the UO Foundation to hide communications or PR spending, the Foundation has been very active in promoting the IAAF championships and lobbying for the subsidy for them, as can be seen from the many Paul Weinhold emails. This is not to say that Henley has been involved in this, and I apologize if that was not as clear as it should have been.
Henley also objects to my characterization of Tobin Klinger as a “PR Flack”. I’m sorry, but I routinely hear reporters use that phrase – and far less complementary ones – to describe Mr. Klinger. One very experienced and professional public relations person told me “I hate it when you use the F word. But you’re right.” Klinger has burned his bridges with the university community and the Oregon press and public, and the sooner the UO administration accepts that and moves on the sooner they will be able to rebuild trust.
4/14/2016:
Boy did that not work out well for Chancellor Katehi. The NYT weighs in with additional ridicule here. The SacBee has the report and the public records, here:
UC Davis contracted with consultants for at least $175,000 to scrub the Internet of negative online postings following the November 2011 pepper-spraying of students and to improve the reputations of both the university and Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi, newly released documents show. The payments were made as the university was trying to boost its image online and were among several contracts issued following the pepper-spray incident. Some payments were made in hopes of improving the results computer users obtained when searching for information about the university or Katehi, results that one consultant labeled “venomous rhetoric about UC Davis and the chancellor.” Others sought to improve the school’s use of social media and to devise a new plan for the UC Davis strategic communications office, which has seen its budget rise substantially since Katehi took the chancellor’s post in 2009. Figures released by UC Davis show the strategic communications budget increased from $2.93 million in 2009 to $5.47 million in 2015.
The pepper spray incident is in noted contrast to what happened at UO, where Dave Hubin (one-time UC-Davis student body president) was able to calm down the UOPD and persuade the Occupy Eugene protesters to peacefully leave campus. In the end Dave didn’t even need to take up former Chancellor George Pernsteiner on his gracious offer to let them stay with him at Treetops.
But UO has had its own PR problems. How much have we spent managing them? The number I have for Anna Richter-Taylor and Gallatin Public Affairs is $365,014, but the invoices Public Records provided are astonishingly vague, and presumably JH is now running this sort of thing through the UO Foundation to keep it hidden. (Which wouldn’t work in CA, where university foundations must obey the public records law.) And of course UO spent millions on 160over90, before President Schill shut them down.
Tim Gleason, former Journalism Dean, got a cut too, in part for helping write this unsigned letter accusing me of being “anti-university”. It took many public records requests before he finally fessed up.
A month ago UO’s directory listed longtime UO administrator Lorraine Davis’s only current UO affiliation as Professor Emeritus [sic] – an unpaid honorific typically bestowed upon faculty who retire after long and distinguished careers as teachers and researchers:
I was a little surprised to see this, since Davis’s recent work has been more focused on Duck sports than UO academics, and if not honorific has certainly been well paid:
I’m sure these “Overload Alamo Bowl Duties” are essential to our academic mission – although I’ll be more sure after my obligatory tax deductible bowl game junket as Senate President – but has UO really sunk to the place where this crap gets you a Professor Emerita rank?
Not yet. Ms Davis’s position as Professor Emerita has now been removed from the UO directory, there is no mention of her on the Department of Educational Methodology, Policy, and Leadership’s website, and she’s now just listed on the UO website as a “Special Assistant” to our Athletic Director, President, and Provost:
But I wonder who costs the academic budget more – Special Assistant Lorraine Davis, or “Faculty” Athletics Representative Tim Gleason?
It seems there’s a UO policy that limits when faculty can assign course incompletes – the work has to be incomplete, but not too incomplete. It’s the job of UO’s well-paid Faculty Athletics Representative Tim Gleason to enforce these sorts of rules for our unpaid “student-athletes”. So they pulled Jasmine Todd out of the starting blocks, This will hurt her future pro career, but while the NCAA is all about paying people like Gleason (from the academic budget) they couldn’t care less about the athletes. Ken Goe has the story here.
6/6/2016 update:
Diane Dietz is here and there will be a recording posted somewhere, so I’m skipping the live-blog. Very glad to see the J-School organize this, and I thought the panel did a good job addressing the pros and cons.
It was amusing to hear former UO journalism dean Tim Gleason talk about the chilling effect that administrative groups like the BRT and anonymous complaints against faculty can have on academic freedom. At one point he even said they were potentially unconstitutional.
Quite a difference from his own efforts to get the faculty union to accept an extremely restrictive academic freedom clause in the 2013 CBA, and his participation in this attempt to chill my free speech, and this evil blog:
I
My 2013 response to this attack:
… Many UO faculty have now told me that I should be outraged by your letter, that it is harmful to my professional reputation, and even that it constitutes “defamation per se”, whatever that means.
While I’m no lawyer, on closer reading I think they may have a point. The letter is on UO letterhead, is posted on an official UO website, is addressed to my academic colleagues in my university community, and it even uses my professional title:
“We write this letter to our University community because we believe it is both necessary and appropriate to inform you of … the continued reporting of biased, erroneous and inflammatory reports from the bargaining table by Professor Bill Harbaugh …”
The letter and the website also make some damaging accusations about my actions and intentions, stating them as if they were facts. I note in particular the statement that my blog is “consistently anti-university”, and “He has also filed frivolous and repeated records requests for information directly related to bargaining.” I’m thinking maybe that was supposed to say “not directly related to bargaining” but regardless, I am not the sort of person who takes accusations of frivolity lightly, even confused ones. Economics is a serious subject, and no potential employer would want to hire a professor with a reputation for joking around.
However the strangest part of this open letter is that a group of UO administrators and attorneys would write something like this, put it on official UO letterhead, post it on an official UO website, and then not sign their names to it. …
It took me years and many public records requests to get Tim Gleason to fess up to his participation in writing this hilariously defamatory attack piece on me. But now suddenly he is a free speech advocate? I wonder why.
Here’s a snippet of the heavily redacted emails. Gleason refused my repeated requests for them, so eventually I paid UO’s Public Record’s Office $250 to get them – which they apparently spent on blue ink:
More here.
6/3/2016 update:
Dear members of the SOJC community,
Over the past couple of weeks there has been a lot of discussion around the Bias Response Team and its implications for the work we do here as faculty, staff, GTFs and administrators. In an effort to have an open and candid discussion around this issue, the school will host a panel discussion on Monday, June 6th at 4 pm in Allen 141.
A lot has been written on this topic of late in national media, but we hope to clarify the role of the BRT here at Oregon, its mission and its process. We also plan to discuss the specific ways we can balance inclusivity, free speech, and critical thinking. The panel will include:
Dr. Tim Gleason, Professor of Journalism and Director, Payne Awards for Ethics in Journalism
Dr. Robin Holmes, VP for Student Life and Interim Dean of Students
Dr. Dean Mundy, Assistant Professor and Chair, Diversity Committee
Teri Del Rosso, Doctoral Candidate in Media Studies
Quantrell Willis, Assistant Dean of Students
Moderator: Dr. Chris Chavez, Assistant Professor
I hope you all can make it for this very important discussion.
5/14/2016: Washington Post columnist ridicules UO’s Bias Response Team report
Catherine Rampell in the WaPo, here:
I’ve written before about the array of upsetting things that college students have demanded trigger warnings for (fatphobia, nude models in a life drawing class, etc.), as well as the kinds of activities that now get somewhat arbitrarily punished as “acts of bias.” Well, come take a look at another incredible document illustrating what supposedly discriminatory behaviors today’s students think worthy of redress or punishment.
In its annual report, the University of Oregon’s Bias Response Team has published a list of 2014-2015 “case report summaries.” These appear to refer to all the times students (and some faculty and staff) sought formal help from administrators when they believed they or their peers were victims of “bias.”
In some cases, it’s hard to understand what the actual offense was, why the person reporting said offense attributed it to “bias,” or why it would be appropriate to get administrators involved rather than resolve the issue through some other means. In other cases, the person reporting the incident takes the shotgun method of bias reporting and cites seemingly every possible demographic category as the targeted victims of “bias.”
A sample of the Bias Response Team’s case reports, and responses:
A staff member reported that a poster featured a triggering image.
Bias Type: Body Size
Location: Housing
Response: Reported for information only. A BRT Advocate offered support to the reporter.An anonymous student reported that an official online form asked for demographic information in a way that excluded certain identity groups.
Bias Type: Gender Identity/Expression, Ethnicity, Race
Location: Administrative Building
Response: A BRT Case Manager met with administrators of the form to provide resources on inclusive surveying techniques. The administrators used these techniques on a survey they sent out the very next week.An anonymous student reported that a newspaper gave less press coverage to trans students and students of color.
Bias Type: Ethnicity, Race, Political Affiliation
Location: Online
Response: A BRT Case Manager held an educational conversation with the newspaper reporter and editor.…
Update: Some brief notes from the meeting today: The PAGIA has not yet met this year. Gleason believes Kim Sheehan (Advertising) is still the chair. Gleason gives an interesting report on some of the topics that he and the PAC-12 and FBS conferences have and will be voting on (including many of obvious academic importance). All apparently done without faculty input. This was followed by a full and frank discussion focused on the athletic department’s unwillingness to meet with the IAC, and the Jaqua Center’s unwillingness to share data. As usual the student members did a great job with questions.
Gleason brought up the use of the allegedly derogatory phrase “Jock Box”, which originally appeared in print in the New York Times, in their 2010 “University of Nike” story. It turns out Gleason has a point, of sorts, according to the well know urban dictionary website:
One of the student representatives then explained to Gleason that the phrase reflected legitimate concerns by non-athletic students over the fact they are not allowed to use the box, but have to pay for it. Links to Greg Bolt’s stories about this are here. This year the subsidy is $2.4M, including $11K to engrave the $140K worth of Macbooks that the athletes get:
Why do UO’s regular students have to pay for all this out of their tuition? Why does Gleason expect them to do so happily?
10/27/2015: Yes, of course it’s a public meeting.
Hopes are high that Senate Intercollegiate Athletics Committee Chair Andy Karduna (Human Phys) will be able to successfully follow up on the excellent work that Kurt Krueger (Printing) did as chair last year, in the aftermath of the basketball rape allegation cover-up. The less said about the disastrous leadership of 2013-14 chair Rob Illig (Law) the better, although I notice Krueger has a brief history report on the agenda.
The highlight of the meeting will no doubt be the report from UO’s new Faculty Athletics Representative, Tim Gleason (Journalism).
UO’s previous FAR, Jim O’Fallon (Law), was also on the NCAA Infractions Committee, where he contributed to the ruin of many a young student-athlete. Here’s his committee’s report on UConn basketball player Nate Miles:
As stated in the committee’s public infractions report, this case centers on the “extraordinary steps” taken by the university to recruit a top prospective student-athlete to its men’s basketball program. The director of athletics stated it was the “most intense” he has ever seen the head coach about the recruitment of a prospective student-athlete. The committee found that in his “zeal” to get the prospect admitted to the university and eligible to compete, the head coach allowed a booster, who was a certified agent by the National Basketball Association, to be involved in the recruitment process. Further, the committee found that the head coach “overlooked indications” that this booster might be breaking NCAA rules. Specifically, the booster provided the prospect with impermissible inducements, including the payment of at least a portion of the expenses for the young man’s foot surgery; …
The members of the Committee on Infractions who reviewed this case include Dr. Dennis Thomas, the commissioner of the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference and chair of the Committee on Infractions. Other members are Britton Banowsky, commissioner of Conference USA; John S. Black, attorney; Eleanor Myers, faculty athletics representative and law professor at Temple University; Josephine (Jo) R. Potuto, the Richard H. Larson Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Nebraska College of Law; Roscoe C. Howard, Jr., attorney; and James O’Fallon, law professor and faculty athletics representative for University of Oregon.
That’s right, some booster paid for an athlete’s foot-surgery, so the NCAA ruined his life. The athlete’s life, that is. There were some claims that the NCAA’s Infractions Committee violated HIPPA in this investigation, but I don’t know what came of that. The NYT reported in 2011 on the consequences of this ruling for “the prospect”:
The former University of Connecticut basketball recruit Nate Miles is effectively homeless. He moves from friend’s couch to friend’s couch, still recovering from a violent assault that left him with a stab wound and a punctured lung and a monthlong stay in the hospital.
Miles, 23, has obligations to go with his troubles, two sons from different mothers, and no great confidence in where his next meal is coming from. A life playing basketball, the sport he once planned to make a grand career of, seems unlikely. He was fired from the Premiere Basketball League’s Dayton, Ohio, team, and he now says he cannot afford to play at a local recreation center because he lacks the $10 fee.
… “I don’t feel like it’s fair, but it’s life; life isn’t fair,” Miles said.
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| NCAA enforcer and UO FAR Jim O’Fallon | NCAA player Nate Miles |
But life is more than fair for the FAR. We paid O’Fallon $97K to do this job, half-time:
And now we’re paying Tim Gleason $100K:
This money – and all the expenses of the FAR office – come out of UO’s academic budget. So the IAC should expect a pretty thorough report from our faculty colleague Tim Gleason, on what he has been doing, and plans to do, to ensure that the Duck’s revenue student-athletes get something besides an A+ in their “Art of the Athlete” class, in return for all the money they bring in for their coaches.
IAC Agenda:
Location: 109 Friendly
Day: Wednesday, October 28, 2015
Time: 1-2 pm
Tentative Schedule
1:00 Welcome and introductions: Chair
1:10 A Brief History: Kurt Krueger, Immediate Past Chair
1:20 Faculty Athletic Representative (FAR) report/comments: Tim Gleason
1:30 Role of IAC Executive Committee: Chair
1:35 Discussion of the charge of the committee: Chair
1:45 Open Discussion – member questions, concerns, priorities, agenda items, etc.
1:55 Scheduling of future meetings
“Around the O” is the official UO blog that Bob Berdahl, Scott Coltrane, and Jim Bean paid former Journalism Dean Tim Gleason to start, to counteract the baleful influence of UO Matters:
Gleason took the money, but he didn’t deliver:
But now it’s all good. Instead of Gleason, UO has a new communications VP, Kyle Henley. And now Greg Bolt is in charge of Around the O. And it’s way better. No more Klinger crap. No more potentially defamatory posts from Tim Gleason. And lots of interesting science reporting from Jim Barlow:
Apparently it’s going to cost $732.92 to find out. Long story:
RG columnist Don Kahle’s hilarious 8/15/2014 column on Mike Gottfredson’s $940K buy-out ends with this:
… One of Gottfredson’s final acts as president was to appoint one of his campus allies to serve as the university’s Faculty Athletics Representative for the NCAA. Sports must have been on his mind when he wrote his final letter to the university, which ended with “Go Ducks!”
This was a controversial decision. The UO Senate had already passed a resolution on 4/9/2014 calling for an open search. Gottfredson ignored it. So the Senate scheduled debate on legislation for an open search in May. Gottfredson didn’t show. On August 6th he gave the ~$108K gig to former UO Journalism Dean Tim Gleason, a frequent bowl game junketeer.
I wasn’t there, but I’ve received a few emails from Journalism faculty, telling me that Professor of Advertising Deb Morrison used the occasion of a Friday J-School faculty meeting with UO’s VP for Equity and Inclusion Yvette Alex-Assensoh to assert that I was engaged in cyberbullying.
The official .gov definition is here:
Cyberbullying happens when kids bully each other through electronic technology. Find out why cyberbullying is different from traditional bullying, what you can do to prevent it, and how you can report it when it happens.
Cyberbullying is bullying that takes place using electronic technology. Examples of cyberbullying include mean text messages or emails, rumors sent by email or posted on social networking sites, and embarrassing pictures, videos, websites, or fake profiles. According to online sites similar to Broadband Search, 87% of young people have seen cyberbullying happening on their social media.
I sent Prof Morrison an email asking if she’d like to meet for coffee to discuss her statements, and got back this response:
From: Deborah Morrison
Subject: Re: cyberbullying?
Date: April 24, 2015 at 11:05:43 PM PDT
To: Bill Harbaugh
Wow, that didn’t take long. I did see a few folks look up with a bit of glee during the faculty meeting so I suppose I did my part to keep everyone awake.
As Yvette talked about beautiful ideals of cohesion and collaboration and fairness and problem-solving (I love all of that!), I simply thought here was another problem of academe. We talk about this but no one talks about the reality that your blog and your posse is toxic for the campus community.
I’m sure this is no surprise to you. My take publicly and without anonymity on your blog has been that I’ve often praised you for SAIL and the Lariviere energy. I still appreciate both of those.
But whatever truth you’ve offered on the blog in the past couple years – and there has been some – is totally negated by the meanness, innuendo, libel, belittling, lying, castigation, name-calling, and snark that you’ve thrown out. It’s not fair or healthy. It’s bullying.
I wouldn’t mind having coffee, but it would have to wait til after a big New York trip I’m leading. Spinning plates til then.
Some of Professor Morrison’s previous comments on this blog, anonymous and acknowledged, are available here, related to a panel on public records, at a meeting of the Society of Professional Journalists at UO, with myself and former J-School Dean Tim Gleason:
1) Morrison, commenting as “Unknown”:
Gleason continues to have great support amongst our sojc faculty and industry because of the work he’s done. He’s shown vision and integrity at a time when we needed it most. So stop this nonsense, UOM. Your being asked to speak to the SPJ was disappointing (at the least) and wrongheaded. What you do is nowhere near journalism.
Your value as leader and truth caller has been consistently devalued. Why? Snark, silliness, miscommunication, untruths, slander, lies. It’s meant to degrade and confuse. No one except your posse cares about what you churn out because the agenda is you, not the truth. That’s sad. And most emphatically, it’s not journalism.
2) Morrison, commenting as Morrison:
I hate anonymous posting. It’s probably the lowest point of humanity. So…
I’m UNKNOWN above. I don’t write press releases and this does not call for one. And I don’t want a long harangue with you and your followers, Bill.
But here’s the reality: this is the type of stuff that’s wrong. Gleason is not hostile to Freedom of Information and your post and the subsequent comments imply he is. The crap you’ve said about him and others is unfair and unethical.
That’s what you do: you make work of implications and gossip and innuendo and then you all chew on it as if it’s fact. I’ve praised you very publicly before when you were asking hard questions, especially around the Lariviere issues. I’ve worked with you on SAIL and honor you for that.
But as I noted in the other post, all the strong voice is negated when there’s constant misleading or simply vicious information like this post. The stuff you say about people, the attempts to disembowel and ruin careers, the side remarks that you and dog and old dog and anonymous, etc all peck to death has no value except as venom. You have your followers. But so many (most of whom are not politically active or in the JH culture) are simply turned off by this and see it as ruining the culture and opportunity at this University. There are better ways to solve problems and make things happen.
This is an attempt to be honest. I hope it will be accepted as such.
3) My response:
To Deb Morrison:
This post was my effort to respond to the claims Tim Gleason made at the SPJ conference regarding his history of support for public records and transparency. I thought his claims did not reflect the actual history at UO, where he has actively tried to make it more difficult for reporters and others to get public records.
I have more documentation on that I could post. But I think the post has made that point. Re-reading it, I don’t see anything excessively personal it it, and in contrast there is plenty of substantive information, facts, documentation, and an accurate portrayal of what Gleason said at the session, and how it was received by the reporters present.
In contrast, your comment on this post says:
“But here’s the reality: this is the type of stuff that’s wrong. Gleason is not hostile to Freedom of Information and your post and the subsequent comments imply he is. The crap you’ve said about him and others is unfair and unethical.”
I don’t recall seeing you at the session. Your comment does not include any documentation for your claim that Gleason is not hostile to public records access, or any information that conflicts with anything in my post. Your comment does include a personal attack on me, but you also don’t provide any support for that either.
Obviously Gleason are I are not on friendly terms. You can see this quite clearly in my live-blogging about the union bargaining sessions, or in the “Open Letter” that he helped write, accusing me of being “anti-university”. At least I think he helped write it, UO’s public records office won’t tell me unless I pay them hundreds of dollars in fees, and Gleason won’t answer my questions about it. This is remarkably similar to nasty anonymous blog comments – except those don’t come on official UO letterhead!
Regardless, I don’t think you attended any of those 42 union bargaining meetings either, so you don’t seem to be in a good position to do more than give an opinion about the origins of that mutual animosity either.
That said, I’m happy to provide a place for you to write about me, since I think that opinions, even uninformed and nasty ones, can be an important form of civil speech.
Bill Harbaugh
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