But think the board could use a more diverse collection of narrow-minded business-type leaders – no experience with higher education needed:
From their most recent self-review, with responses filtered by Board Secretary Angela Wilhelms:
The list of possible subjects is large. As usual, Board Chair Angela Wilhelms isn’t giving specifics:
[reposted because of reserve and media contract stuff]
3:00 p.m. Finance and Facilities Committee https://trustees.uoregon.edu/sites/trustees2.uoregon.edu/files/meeting_packet_-_ffc_final_12.3.18.pdf
1. Audited Financial Statements: Jamie Moffitt, Vice President for Finance and Administration and CFO; Kelly Wolf, Associate Vice President and Controller; Scott Simpson, Partner, Moss Adams
Here’s one metric where UO is not at the bottom of the AAU – reserves:
2. Quarterly Financial Reports and Annual Treasury Report: Jamie Moffitt, Vice President for Finance and Administration and CFO; Karen Levear, Director, Treasury Operations
All these business people on the board, and the only trustee who found the error in the report is the UO staff trustee, Jimmy Murray, a librarian. Controller Kelly Wolf thanks him.
As usual these reports do not include any information on the athletics budget, or the various tax changes affecting it, or their subsidies, or their debt obligations. This is despite the fact that in the past trustees have specifically asked to see this.
Live-blog: Really not that hard, was it? I thought the student trustee Katharine Wishnia had the best comments, here. Pres Schill promised some stuff, and maybe called out implicit bias training as the sort of window-dressing we could do without, but I wasn’t really listening, sorry. If anyone brought up what to do about the Duck’s exploitation of mostly minority football players to pay for coaching, travel, and scholarships for mostly white non-revenue sport athletes I missed it.
Mostly this meeting is online – I mean virtual – but a few of the trustees are in JH:
One of them is wearing what appears to be an American flag mask. I’m no vexillologist who once got chewed out by my Boy Scout Troopmaster for wearing an American flag bandana on a canoe trip, but this is a violation of U.S. Code § 8. Respect for flag:
No disrespect should be shown to the flag of the United States of America; the flag should not be dipped to any person or thing. Regimental colors, State flags, and organization or institutional flags are to be dipped as a mark of honor.
(d)The flag should never be used as wearing apparel, bedding, or drapery.
(e)The flag should never be fastened, displayed, used, or stored in such a manner as to permit it to be easily torn, soiled, or damaged in any way.
(i)The flag should never be used for advertising purposes in any manner whatsoever. It should not be embroidered on such articles as cushions or handkerchiefs and the like, printed or otherwise impressed on paper napkins or boxes or anything that is designed for temporary use and discard. …
(j)No part of the flag should ever be used as a costume or athletic uniform.
Also, the flag should be displayed so that the union (i.e. the stars) are on the observer’s left.
6/24/2020: This is either going to be the shortest board meeting since the one where they bought out Gottfredson, or an opportunity for Pres Schill and our Trustees to give long, heartfelt speeches about their newly acquired but deeply held beliefs about the symbolic importance of de-naming Deady.
The next meeting of the Board of Trustees is scheduled for June 24 at 1:00 p.m. Pacific Time. This meeting will be limited to the topic of Deady Hall. The next regular, quarterly meeting of the Board is scheduled for September 10-11, 2020.
The June 24 meeting will be held remotely due to ongoing social distancing guidance. Members of the public or media may view a livestream feed at: https://youtu.be/diSuPRnX6Ko , or listen via audio only by dialing 1-888-337-0215 and entering Access Code: 9504541.
Those wishing to provide public comment to the Board for this meeting may do so in writing via [email protected]. All comments will be shared with trustees, but only comments received by 8:00 a.m. on June 24 are guaranteed to be shared with trustees prior to the meeting. Thank you for understanding.
6/10/2020: Pres Schill’s response to Trustee Colas ignores exploitation of black student athletes, accepts denaming Deady
Pres Schill’s letter is below – he says he’s changed his mind on denaming Deady and the Board will meet on it soon. He ignores the exploitation issue.
Trustee Andrew Colas, speaking at last weeks Board meeting:
First he pointed out to Duck AD Rob Mullens that it’s the football players – mostly black – whose unpaid labor earns 75% of the AD budget and supports Mullens and the “non-revenue” sports, which are mostly white. So Black Lives should Matter to Mullens, if he wants to keep getting paid. Video of Colas’s response to AD Rob Mullens is here:
Then, in thoughtful and moving remarks, he called for the Board to vote – immediately – to dename Deady Hall, here:
President Schill’s letter:
Just kidding, they’re going to meet, but just about de-naming Deady. Gosh, I wonder what they’ll decide this time.
This Wednesday Thursday at 1 PM, online. Corrected materials here. (The original agenda had the day as Thursday, but it’s really on Wednesday.)
Livestream will presumably be on the UO Channel here.
All other matters will be resolved in secret zoom meetings between Angela Wilhems, Mike Schill, Patrick Phillips, Brad Shelton, and Rob Mullens over the next month or so.
And nothing else. Because they’ve got all the money and power and don’t have to listen to any more complaints from you whiners. Football starts in September, love it or leave it:
A brave man. Trustees are not supposed to disagree with Lillis in public. I’m sure there will be consequences. I hope there may be action.
First he pointed out to Duck AD Rob Mullens that it’s the football players – mostly black – whose unpaid labor earns 75% of the AD budget and supports Mullens and the “non-revenue” sports, which are mostly white. So Black Lives should Matter to Mullens, if he wants to keep getting paid. Video here.
Then, in thoughtful and moving remarks, he called for the Board to vote – immediately – to dename Deady Hall, here:
At one point Colas noted that Deady had later changed his racist views – and argued that Deady himself might recognize, were he alive today, the pain and suffering he had caused so many blacks, and agree that his name should not be in the face of them now.
Daily Emerald reporter Duncan Baumgarten has the story here:
Matthew Deady, after whom the university’s first building is named, was appointed to the position of President of the UO Board of Regents in 1873. He was a pro-slavery delegate to the Oregon constitutional convention, and Colas read quotes from Deady detailing his racism, including saying that Black people are just as much property as “horses, cattle and land.”
“I cannot accept a person who would see me and believe that I am as good as a horse, cattle or a piece of land. That wrecks me inside,” Colas said Thursday.
Because of Oregon’s public meeting laws that require advanced notice, the board couldn’t debate or vote on renaming the building during Thursday’s meeting.
“We will visit about this and see what we want to do here,” Board Chair Chuck Lillis said.
Actually, the Board has broken the intent of Oregon’s public meetings law at least three times under Chuck Lillis and Angela Wilhelms leadership to take action without advance notice or in secret. Once when they tried to ram the delegation of authority legislation through without even letting the board see it until the morning of the vote – this attempt was stymied when RG reporter Diane Dietz and I saw Chuck Triplett putting it on their desks during a coffee break, took some quick photos, and the faculty raised hell. Then again when they gave Mike Gottredson a $940K buyout without showing the contract before the meeting, and again when Wilhelms kicked Dietz and me out of a secret “training session” at the Eugene Hilton, where the board decided how to subsidize the IAAF Track and Field Championships.
More from the Emerald:
The board voted to change the name of Dunn Hall, named after a KKK member who was a classics professor at the UO, to Unthank Hall, in 2017. The hall is now named after DeNorval Unthank Jr., the first Black student to graduate from the UO’s School of Architecture and Allied Arts.
But UO President Michael Schill decided to not rename Deady Hall that same year. In the course of that decision, the board of trustees compiled a report on the subject.
At the time Pres Schill promised to at least put up an interpretive area in Deady, explaining his complicated racist history. It never happened. I assume VPEI Alex-Assensoh is still revising the org chart for the committee, and scheduling some more Jeffersonian Dinners at Marche to decide on the wording.
Live! I’ll try and add some commentary below, but it’s pretty depressing realizing these are the people who actually control our university, and I’m not sure I’ve got the stomach to watch it all.
Befuddled chairman of the board Chuck Lillis needs a little help with the tubes:
As usual Board Secretary Angela Wilhelms has buried the agenda in a giant PDF deep within the trustees website. Call me slow, but I’m beginning to suspect this may be intentional. Here’s my customary user friendly version. 184 pages of meeting materials here.
Thursday, June 4, 2020, at 9:00 a.m.:
Due to current orders regarding campus operations and social distancing, the meeting will be held via video conference with a telephone conference option available for members of the media and the public.
Subjects of the meeting will include institutional planning and response related to COVID-19, demographics and higher education, revisions to the student conduct code, FY21 expenditure authorizations, a bioengineering graduate degree, recognition of a long-serving employee, a lease of the Romania property, and a report on the institution’s research activities.
Livestream link: Available day of at https://trustees.uoregon.edu/meetings. Public Teleconference Information: (888) 337-0215, Code – 7040421
Public Comment: Individuals wishing to provide public comment to the Board of Trustees may do so in writing via [email protected] All comments will be shared with members of the board, but to ensure comments are provided to trustees in advance of the meeting, they must be received by 5:00 p.m. Pacific Time on June 3, 2020.
Convene Public Meeting, Call to order and verification of a quorum, Approval of minutes from March 2020 ASAC, FFC, and full Board meetings.
1. COVID-19 Impacts, Response and Planning. Michael Schill, President; Patrick Phillips, Provost and Senior Vice President; André Le Duc, Associate Vice President and Chief Resilience Officer; others.
Schill: usual speech.
Moffitt: Only minor impact on academic budget so far:
But bad news for the auxiliaries: $20M or so. She won’t break out athletics, of course. No mention of the $16M in federal CARES money.
Lots of uncertainty about coming year, of course.
2. Research Report: David Conover, Vice President for Research and Innovation
3. FY21 Expenditure Authorizations (Action): Jamie Moffitt, Vice President for Finance and Administration and CFO
4. Presidential Evaluation Schedule Change (Action): Chuck Lillis, Chair
Meeting Recessed Until 1:00 p.m. PT
5. Higher Education Demand and Demographic Shifts: Nathan Grawe, Professor of Economics and Ada M. Harrison Distinguished Teaching Professor of the Social Sciences at Carleton College
6. Student Conduct Code Revisions (Action): Erik Girvan, Professor of Law and Co-Chair of the Student Conduct and Community Standards Committee
7. Graduate Degree in Bioengineering (Action): Jim Hutchison, Senior Associate Vice President and Lokey-Harrington Chair in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
8. Romania Property Ground Lease (Action): Mike Harwood, Associate Vice President and University Architect
9. Employee Recognition – Dianne Nelson (Action): Michael Schill, President; Jessie Minton, Vice Provost and Chief Information Officer
Meeting Adjourned
In June 2015 UO projected that debt expense payments for 2021 would be about $43M a year:
Now in June 2020 they are projecting debt expense payments for 2021 will be about $58M a year – a $15M increase:
Why the increase? Mostly for 30 year bonds sold to build new dorms, part of the “Athlete’s Village” that Phil Knight needed for the IAAF Track and Field Championships bids. We’ll be paying them off for a long time.
For perspective, the average student brings in about $20K a year in tuition, so it would take about 750 new students to cover this $15M in new debt.
Enrollment increases are unlikely, so the current plan from President Schill and Provost Phillips is to cut wages for faculty and staff to cover this debt expense increase and any revenue declines from cuts in state contributions and enrollment.
In any case the party is over. In March – before the impact of the coronavirus – Moody’s had already revised UO’s credit outlook to negative, citing the increased debt, spending, resistance to tuition increases, low reserves, etc. (Thanks to a helpful reader for sharing this public record, which took Kevin Reed’s office 3 weeks to provide. Full report here. So far as I can tell Angela Wilhelms and Chuck Lillis never showed it to the Trustees, nor was if discussed in their public meetings. Not exactly due diligence.)
The tables are from the back pages of the Trustees agenda materials. June 2015 here, 2020 here. It seems unlikely that the Trustees will do their due diligence on this at their June 4th meeting, given that they are the people who approved all the decisions that got us here.
Just kidding.
Our Trustees rely on Angela Wilhelms to spoon-feed them their agenda, and these data will not be on the menu for their June 4 meeting:
They have hired a consultant to explain this to them though:
Our Trustees will meet again on June 4th by Zoom, presumably to approve another $12M Jumbotron for Uncle Phil.
Meanwhile, The Daily Emerald has the story on Governor Kate Brown’s nomination of current OHSU VP for Administration and Board Secretary Connie Seeley as the latest UO Trustee, here:
Seeley graduated from UO with a degree in political science in 1992 and currently serves as Oregon Health & Science University’s chief of staff, executive vice president and chief administrative officer, according to the application she submitted to the governor’s office.
… Seeley worked for Brown previously as her legislative director when Brown was the senate democratic leader, according to Seeley’s resume. For seven years she was also the chief of staff to Senate President Peter Courtney, who’s been the leader of the senate — which will confirm Seeley’s appointment — since 2003.
This will make Seeley the first UO Trustee with any significant higher ed administrative experience, unless you count Chuck Lillis who was a b-school dean back in the day.
Interestingly, Seeley also serves as the Board Secretary for OHSU’s Trustees. At UO that role is filled by Angela Wilhelms, where the BOT Secretary is a full time job with separate staff, controlled by Board Chair Lillis, with the job of making sure the UO President toes the line. Wilhelms had previously been Chief of Staff to the Republican side of the Legislature.
The full board applications from Seeley and the four other applicants are available on Gov. Brown’s admirably transparent public records website, here. Wilhelms and Lillis endorsed 3 of these candidates as explained by Zach Demars in an earlier story, here.
Presumably runner-up candidate Steve Holwerda, a private wealth investment advisor known for his love of Ayn Rand, lifelong desire to be Duck Athletics Director, and fabulous Lake Oswego mansion, will get his chance to serve on the board of Oregon’s flagship public university soon, and perhaps recruit a few new rich clients for his firm.
I requested these docs from Gov Brown’s office last month:
| 4/25/2020 | William Harbaugh | UOM | Under Review | n/a |
|
I am requesting electronic copies of any communications sent between the Governor’s office and UO President Michael Schill or his office, UO Provost Patrick Phillips or his office, Duck Athletic Director Rob Mullens or his office, UO Board Secretary Angela Wilhelms or her office, and UO Board of Trustees Chuck Lillis. This request is for the dates Jan 1 2019 til the date the request is filled. |
||||
And will post a link when they are available.
Just kidding, Ralph threw them a few softballs. Then Chairman Chuck Lillis (best known for his role in the 2008 bankruptcy of WaMu) asked Mullens something about the Duck’s magical season, they all laughed and our Board of Trustees voted unanimously for it and for a new media licensing deal which includes another $5.5M for Jumbotronettes. Not exactly what I’d call due diligence:
What else can you say to the people who hired you and set your salary and bonuses? You can promise them that you’re continuing the hidden athletics subsidies and won’t use any of the Duck’s budget bucket to help the academic side:
Some snippets, full report below the break:
Under the direction of the Board of Trustees, the university recommitted with full force to improving its educational and research capacity to pursue excellence in support of its academic mission. Those plans, developed by the UO administration and faculty, are now propelling the university forward. Five years later, the UO is on a sustainable upward trajectory and has strengthened its overall standing as a comprehensive university distinguished by the disciplinary breadth and depth of our programs in education and research. The progress has been noted by external reviewers, who use words such as “transformational” to describe the progress of the past five years.
He’s pretty happy with the faculty union too:
The UO also works collaboratively with its faculty union on matters related to employment. The UO is unusual among nationally prominent universities in having a unionized faculty. Among the UO’s AAU peers, only Rutgers University, the State University of New York, and the University of Florida have tenure-related faculty in a bargaining unit. A faculty bargaining unit was also certified at OSU in 2018. The leadership of United Academics has been stable and they have collaborated with the UO administration to solve such challenges as the new teaching evaluation process, benefits for postdoctoral fellows, and mandatory discrimination training for faculty. There have also been periodic instances of friction over a variety of issues, for example, funding allocations.
And even the University Senate:
Shared governance, as embodied by the University Senate, has long played an important role at the UO. At times, the senate and administration have been at odds. Relations have improved substantially over the last four years, aided by greater stability in Johnson Hall and a willingness from both administration and the senate to improve communication and collaboration. Disagreements still occur from time to time, but they are rarely over academic matters, the prime area entrusted to the University Senate. Indeed, there have been notable examples of successful collaboration, including work on curricula, teaching evaluations, sexual violence reporting requirements, and academic continuity.
On athletics, Pres Schill takes the unprecedented step of explicitly rejecting proposals to get the Ducks to help the academic side of the university, with money. Past presidents, including Frohnmayer and Gottfredson, had endorsed calls to eventually use some of the athletic department’s ever increasing revenues to support academic scholarships for undergraduates. Not President Schill:
Through the extraordinary generosity of passionate donors, athletics is able to balance its budget and maintain self-sufficiency annually. [UOM: This is not true. The academic budget pays for the Jock Box, Matt Court land bonds, we give them a break on overhead expenses, and we pay most of their legal costs, etc.]
If these donors were to suspect that their gifts were being siphoned off to benefit other parts of the university, as some members of the UO community have suggested, donors would likely reduce their support resulting in insolvency for the program. [Why does this work at other universities? Is there something peculiar about Duck donors?]
3/16/2020: N0 liveblog since meeting is closed to visitors, live-streaming is failing.
I showed up at Ford Alumni this morning and was told the Board has banned all visitors from the room – no advance notice and no mention on the Board’s website.
The last time I got kicked out of a board meeting was the one on the IAAF Track and Field Championship bid, when Angela Wilhelms lied to me and the RG’s Diane Dietz, claiming it was a “training session” and that the Public Meetings law allowed her to ban reporters and mere bloggers.
Also, the live-streaming is now breaking up, at least for me on campus, and is unusable.
Supposedly I’ll be allowed into Tuesday’s meeting though, because I signed up to give public comment. I’ll try and live blog it.
3/15/2010: Expect frequent updates Monday and Tuesday.
Live streamed at https://trustees.uoregon.edu/meetings All meetings are in the Ford Alumni Center Ballroom, are open to the public, and given the coronavirus situation everything is subject to change. Presumably more than the usual number of Trustees will be phoning it in, this time literally.
The main items for our Trustees to rubber-stamp this quarter are
$12M for a bigly new video screen at Autzen,
a risky new guaranteed tuition plan that does not yet have the necessary donor support, and
a new multi-million Duck media deal. Wilhelms has redacted all the interesting numbers from that, but it seems to cut the academic budget’s take even more. Hard to say how much, since Kevin Reed’s Public Records Office still won’t release the public records on it.
Schedule in brief:
Monday March 16:
10 AM: Academic and Student Affairs Committee
12. PM: Secret Board meeting where Pres Schill tells them how well he thinks the Faculty Union bargaining is going.
2:30 PM: Finance and Facilities Committee
Tuesday March 17:
9:30 a.m. Full Board meeting.
12:00 PM. Tour of The Phildo for interested Trustees.
As usual, Board Secretary Angela Wilhelms has done her best to make it as difficult as possible to find the board’s agenda and meeting materials. So as usual I’ve extracted these from the pdf’s, added hyperlinks, and will add some more with commentary as the meetings progress.
Schedule in full, details to be added:
Monday March 16, 10 AM: Academic and Student Affairs Committee. Materials
Provost’s Report
Yes, there were a few understudies willing to do this job for less than union scale, but from what I’ve seen so far Patrick Phillips is earning his paycheck. So why do they list everyone’s name in the program except his?
1. College of Education’s Institutional Plan for Educator Equity in Teacher Preparation – Update: Randy Kamphaus, dean of the College of Education; Dianna Carrizales-Engelmann, director of Administration.
The Legislature made them do it.
2. Accreditation – Mid-Cycle Report: Ron Bramhall, associate vice provost for academic excellence; Chuck Triplett, associate vice president for academic infrastructure and accreditation liaison officer.
Our accreditors at the NWCCU are making them do it.
3. UO Career Center: Paul Timmins, executive director
Should be interesting. This has not been UO’s strong point, but should be.
4. Student Success – Measuring Outcomes: Doneka Scott, vice provost for undergraduate education and student success; Kevin Marbury, vice president for student life; Elliot Berkman, professor of psychology and vice president of the University Senate; Michael Griffel, assistant vice president and director of University Housing; and Paul Timmins, executive director of the UO Career Center.
Recess meeting for [Full Board] executive session / lunch. Reconvene approx. 1:00 p.m. Monday, March 16, 2020 at 12:00 p.m. Ford Alumni Center, Room 403. This meeting is an executive session only and is held as authorized under ORS 192.660(2)(d). It is closed to members of the public and the media. Subjects of the meeting will include: discussions related only to current collective bargaining between the UO and United Academics.
5. PathwayOregon Overview: Jim Brooks, associate vice president and director of financial aid; Doneka Scott, vice provost for undergraduate education and student success.
Last I looked this program – which waves tuition for low income in-state students with decent GPAs and then surrounds them with support services – was a model. But it doesn’t have enough money to help lower middle class students.
6. UO-OHSU Partnerships: Patrick Phillips, provost and senior vice president; David Conover, vice president for research and innovation; Bill Cresko, professor and executive director of the Data Science Initiative.
7. Standardized Tests in Admissions: Jim Rawlins, assistant vice president for admissions; Janet Woodruff-Borden, executive vice president for academic affairs.
UO plans to follow the flagship OSU in going “test optional”, meaning students can choose not to submit their SAT/ACT scores. Good idea, not likely to have a big impact.
Monday March 16, 2020 2:30 p.m. Finance and Facilities Committee. Materials
1. Quarterly Audit Report: Leah Ladley, chief auditor; Amy Smith, senior auditor
Chuck Lillis and other UO boosters put up $500K in campaign donations, and got SB 270 through the legislature. The new law took away the State’s ability to audit UO. Now we only have internal auditors. They are beholden to Lillis, who has a bad track record including losing multiple ERISA lawsuits involving defrauding employee retirement funds, and serving on the WAMU board as it went through the largest financial services bankruptcy in US history, so far.
Ladley is Lillis’s third UO internal auditor since the BoT took over. Not a good sign.
2. Quarterly Finance and Treasury Reports; Update on Bond Sale Activity (Action): Jamie Moffitt, vice president for finance and administration and CFO; Jeff Schumacher, director of treasury operations
3. Autzen Stadium Audio/Video Project (Action): Rob Mullens, director of intercollegiate athletics
What can you say,
4. Amended Multi-Media Agreement (Action): Rob Mullens, director of intercollegiate athletics
Show us the records.
Monday March 16, 12PM: Full Board Exec Session to hear about Faculty Union
Monday, March 16, 2020 at 12:00 p.m. Ford Alumni Center, Room 403 This meeting is an executive session only and is held as authorized under ORS 192.660(2)(d). It is closed to members of the public and the media. Subjects of the meeting will include: discussions related only to current collective bargaining between the UO and United Academics.
Tuesday MARCH 17, 2020 | 9:30 a.m. Ford Alumni Center, Full Board regular session. Materials
President’s Report –
Public Comment – Social distancing protocols will be in place for those wishing to make public comment in person. Public comment may also be submitted via email to [email protected]
1. ASUO and University Senate Reports -ASUO President Sabinna Pierre -University Senate President Elizabeth Skowron
2. Tuition and Mandatory Fees for Academic Year 2020-2021 (Action): Michael Schill, President; Jamie Moffitt, Vice President for Finance and Administration; Kevin Marbury, Vice President for Student Life [Materials can be found under the bookmark for Agenda Item #5 – page 27.]
3. COVID-19 Planning and Response at UO: Andre Le Duc, Chief Resilience Officer and AVP for Safety and Risk Services [Materials can be found under the bookmark for Agenda Item #2 – page 9.]
4. Honorary Degree – James F. Ivory (Action): Michael Schill, President [Materials can be found under the bookmark for Agenda Item #3 – page 11.]
5. Resolutions and Seconded Motions from Committee (Actions) [Materials can be found under the bookmark for Agenda Item #4 – page 17.]
4.1 Seconded Motion from FFC – Autzen Audio/Video Project: Ross Kari, FFC Chair
4.2 Seconded Motion from FFC – Amended Multi-Media Agreement: Ross Kari, FFC Chair
4.3 Seconded Motion from FFC – Bond Refund Authorization: Ross Kari, FFC Chair
Trustee Connie Ballmer is quitting 3 years early. The normal replacement procedure is for President Schill and Gov Brown to cut a secret deal on a new Trustee for the “Independent” Board that sets his salary and bonuses at a basketball game, with followup by Chuck Lillis’s Board Secretary Angela Wilhelms, UO lobbyists Hans Bernard and Libby Batlan, and Brown’s Chief of staff.
But this year the NCAA has banned spectators, because of the coronavirus. So I wonder how they’ll do it this time?
(Thanks to Gov. Brown’s lawyers for providing these public records, at no charge)
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