The WaPo reports that the University of Virginia’s Board of Visitors will take up this proposal shortly: “Visitors shall publicly support, or at the very least not openly oppose, the Board’s action as a strong, visible consensus facilitates successful execution of policy and strategy.” “Visitors” is the term Mr. Jefferson…
Posts tagged as “UO Trustees”
And now they need to clean out Johnson Hall, starting with Gottfredson: Dear friends and colleagues, The University of Oregon is entering a bold and exciting new era. Today—July 1, 2014—signals the completion of the university’s transition of governance authority from the Oregon State Board of Higher Education to the…
Here’s hoping this fresh start means the end of the sort of sneak attacks we saw from the conflicted Randy Geller, e.g. with his delegation policy. Announcement here:
UO General Counsel Randy Geller has also been acting as the Interim Board Secretary and General Counsel for the Trustees. It’s a situation ripe for potential conflicts of interest. On the one hand Geller works as President Gottfredson’s attorney, who can fire him (or encourage him to resign, and write…
6/13/2014: [UO Matters: Because of the importance of this meeting to the UO community, I hired freelance reporter Dash Paulson to report on it. His summary is below, followed by a detailed report on what happened at the meeting. His summary is below, followed by a detailed report on what happened at the meeting. As usual, things in quotes are quotes, otherwise it’s the gist of the conversation. I have edited Mr. Paulson’s report a little, but have not made any substantive changes. Paulson’s report on the June 12 session is here.]
Summary:
As at yesterday’s meeting, the Trustees were fully engaged and asked many questions, including some tough and skeptical ones.
Randy Geller began by briefing the board on their ability to call closed executive sessions, the potential pitfalls of FERPA, and their basic powers to discuss records.
President Gottfredson made extended remarks, first addressing sexual assault and saying campus safety for students and was the top priority. “There are students on our campus who feel unsafe. Like you I believe that’s unacceptable. As I believe, as you believe, any instance of sexual assault, sexual harassment, sexual assault isn’t acceptable. Not even one…There is nothing more important for ourselves to concern ourselves with.” He concluded those remarks by saying “We’re going to lean into this as much as we can. This is a big, important problem for us.”
He went on to speak about the dramatic changes that have occurred at the University and how important it is for the University of Oregon to change its governance model, “On my own checklist of things to do, having this board checks the first box. And the first box is we have to do things differently at the University of Oregon.”
Provost Scott Coltrane spoke about the new Clusters of Excellence hires and the process that went into selecting the top ten areas for cluster hiring. “We have buy-in from the faculty on this. But you’ll see the final list is very heavy on the sciences and applied sciences.” The list highlights the ten areas that will be a top priority for hiring. “I’ve gotten a little feedback on this … last week I got letters from faculty about how social sciences and humanities weren’t included here, and of course as former dean of College of Arts and Sciences they were unhappy with me.
Coltrane will be working with those faculty whose proposals weren’t picked and “who are a little cranky right now.” [Editor: The faculty objections are about the process as much as the specific proposals that were funded. See post with Department Heads letter here.] Some nearly made the top ten, such as environmental humanities and Geospatial revolutions. “We’ll be funding some of those also” but not at the same level. Cluster funding doesn’t replace other hiring, just different. We can refigure and reshape [this process] in future years with your help.”
Finally there was a long explanation to the board on the current status of the capital campaign from Mike Andreasen, Vice President of Advancement.
At the end, President Gottfredson paid tribute to Sam Dotters-Katz, who will be graduating, and to Randy Geller, who will be retiring this year.
The details:
Convene 8:33
Lillis: Randy is going to give us some reminders on our responsibilities as Trustees.
6/13/2014 update: Senate President Kyr has posted the written version of his remarks to the board on the role of the Senate, faculty and staff service in shared governance, and the Delegation of Authority policy here. The main substantive issue the Senate has with the delegation of authority policy, as submitted by the administration and passed by the board, is that it gives President Gottfredson control over Senate committees. The disputed language is this:
3.4 Committees, Councils and Advisory Groups. The President of the University shall establish and
define the charge of any and all University committees, councils, and advisory groups, except as provided in Board action.
This is a serious challenge to faculty authority, at odds with AAUP recommendations, and will have to be revisited soon.
I will post the report from Dash Paulson on the day 2 of the Trustees meeting later today.
6/12/2014: [UO Matters: Because of the importance of this meeting to the UO community, I hired freelance reporter Dash Paulson to report on it. Mr. Paulson had written several excellent stories as an Emerald reporter, including the first substantive interview with President Gottfredson, in January 2013, here. His summary is below, followed by a detailed report on what happened at the meeting. As usual, things in quotes are quotes, otherwise it’s the gist of the conversation. I have edited Mr. Paulson’s report a little, but have not made any substantive changes. Dash will have another report from day two. The Trustees web page is here, bios here. Diane Dietz has a report in the RG here, and UO’s “Around the O” blog has the official slanted PR flack report online, if you care enough to search for it.]
Report on June 12 session:
Dash Paulson here, providing you a report on today’s meeting of the board of Trustees. Professor Bill Harbaugh asked me if I would be willing to do this job earlier in the week because he had to fly to a convention. I had to think about it. When I enrolled at UO, Richard Lariviere had just taken over as President. His firing two years later devastated his supporters, but for some people like me it opened a window into how this University actually works because I read UO Matters to see what the hell was going on. The blog was irreverent. It was interesting. It was biting and often unforgiving. I’ve grown to disagree with some of Bill’s intimations, but there’s no one else writing about this interior world with the same veracity and dedication as him.
UO Matters has mattered a lot in the affairs of this University over the last 6 years, and I think I can say Bill’s independence remains unquestioned. For those reasons I’m actually pretty stoked to be the first student contributor to this blog.
Report:
The Trustees today were engaged and eager to learn. Ann Curry is particularly vocal and has asked more questions than the rest of the Trustees combined. Chuck Lillis and Allyn Ford seem very conformable; the general feeling is that everyone is trying to learn quickly; everyone seems intent of being good at their new role. President Mike Gottfredson has repeatedly emphasized the board’s new authority and power and Randy Geller has told them they’re responsible for pretty much everything now. Chuck Lillis is a gracious and humorous chair for the board, but prepared to forge ahead with the business of the board. All committee proposals and policies were adopted, mostly unanimously.
One matter of concern was over the recent GTF strike vote. Three grad students spoke during the public comment section. The Trustees were not pleased they weren’t given forewarning of the potential for a strike. The Trustees in general seemed sympathetic to the GTFs and some of them stressed they want to be kept in the loop about GTFF issues and other labor bargaining.
Senate President Kyr spoke about the controversial Delegation of Authority Policy. In March the Trustees agreed, on urging of Kyr and John Bonine (Law), to get input from the faculty and the Senate before adopting this policy. The Senate committee made substantial changes. The administration accepted some of those, and rejected others, before sending a revised proposal to the Board for consideration. Today Kyr showed the remaining differences between the two documents, and asked the board to consider accepting more of the Senate’s language, and to set up a working group with the Senate to work out language regarding Senate control over its own committees and Board participation in labor negotiations.
The latter concern inspired an amendment, which was originally proposed by Kurt Wilcox, voted down, and then Dotters-Katz proposed different language which was adopted:
“Upon request by the chair of the board or a majority of the trustees the president will provide the board with requested information regarding personnel and employment matters, including labor relations and approval of collective bargaining agreements.”
With that language in place, and despite senate president Robert Kyr asking them to delay a vote, the board adopted the policy with the encouragement of Chuck Lillis and President Gottfredson who explained they could go back and change it anytime.
Call to Order (Chair) 8:35 a.m. the board has been called to order
Roll Call (General Counsel): Everyone is present except Professor Susan Gary
Chair Comments, Discussion of Meeting Agenda (Chair)
Chuck Lillis asks that everyone be ready to make swift progress this morning, “We also have the budget for 2015 and it requires action”
6/12/2014: Full report now posted at https://uomatters.com/2014/06/dash-paulsons-report-on-day-1-of-the-june-12-13-trustees-meeting.html Big news so far is that the Trustees voted to approve the delegation of authority policy as submitted by Randy Geller, with an amendment requiring Gottfredson (or his successor) to make direct reports to the board on labor negotiations. Apparently he never bothered…
Packed agenda here. Board of Trustees of the University of Oregon Finance and Facilities Committee Meeting June 3, 2014 Tuesday, June 3, 2014 – Public Meeting – Ford Alumni Center, Room 403 9:00am 1.0 Convene Call to Order and Welcome Roll Call Looks like a full house, about…
5/30/2014 update: Rumors prove false. The Trustees have now posted the June 12-13 meeting material, here. The delegation revisions start at page 55. At first glance this new draft seems to have addressed at least some of the Senate’s problems with Geller’s initial secret policy, but expect further review by the Senate’s ad hoc committee, chaired by President Rob Kyr (Music).
In other news, the board will host a public roundtable lunch discussion with former Interim UO President Bob Berdahl on Thursday, June 12. Berdahl’s brief presidency (and the hiring of Sharon Rudnick) was instrumental in persuading the UO faculty, including me, that a faculty union was needed to counterbalance the bat-shit craziness in Johnson Hall. As it has proved to be.
Among Berdahl’s last acts at UO were giving Jim Bean and Randy Geller three-year contract extensions, the dismantling of President Lariviere’s transparency initiative, and big raises for Rob Mullens and his coaches.
Highlights of his earlier career as UC-Berkeley President include committing the university to an unaffordable football stadium, quickly followed by a lucrative golden parachute buyout. Given the current situation with Mike Gottfredson and our Trustees, it is clear Berdahl’s expertise on buyouts will be invaluable.
5/30/2014 update: Gottfredson hiding new draft of “Delegation of Board Authority” policy from faculty?
5/12/2014 Update: By an accident of history, President Gottfredson’s Q&A about the latest athletic scandal at the upcoming Wednesday May 14 Senate meeting will come on the anniversary of his first sustained interaction with the UO faculty, the infamous 2013 “asked and answered” debacle. (Yes, he managed to wait almost 10 months after taking office to meet the UO faculty.)
Since then, it’s been all downhill. I know there are those counseling we wait for the UO Board to deal with this disastrous president, and maybe they’re right. (Although I doubt that’s the message the alumni and parents are sending.) But here’s a little history to support the argument that enough is enough, and that if we don’t get answers from Gottfredson on Wednesday, we should hold an immediate vote of no-confidence:
5/14/2013: President Gottfredson’s first talk with UO faculty goes very badly.
Update on the shared governance “conversation” with President Gottfredson:
Our president’s most common response to the faculty is now a curt “read my written remarks” or “asked and answered”, a phrase lawyers use to semi-politely insult each other, when objecting to a question in court.
UO GC and Board of Trustees Counsel Randy Geller tried to sneak a hack-job delegation of authority policy past the university and the board over spring break. He got caught, the board rejected it, and they called for the Senate to provide input on a new policy for adoption in June. The Senate…
Pdf here. It summarizes the Retention and Delegation of Authority policy – more on that later. This is also of note: Applying the assumptions given in the HECC request, Moffitt reported that the UO would require an additional $7.4 million in FY 2016 and an additional $7.7 million in FY 2017 to…
Dear Campus Community, I am pleased to provide this update on recent activities of our new governing board. Over the last month, I have met with many alumni, donors, and friends to enthusiastically share the extraordinary nature of our new board and the opportunity it presents. We are truly working…
Originally posted 2/13/2014: Hired by Randy Geller, paid by UO, but charged with helping the trustees fulfill their fiduciary obligations. Hmmm, what could possibly go wrong? Steve Duin of the Oregonian reports on a few possibilities. Job announcement here: The Secretary of the University is responsible for high-level facilitation and…
Summary:
This was the board’s first substantive meeting. We’ve got a good, fully engaged board. Yesterday they listened to the faculty about Geller and Gottfredson’s attempt to grab power from the faculty, and today they voted unanimously to send that policy back to the Senate for review. They also had a frank discussion about the need to do an evaluation of President Gottfredson. The OUS Board did this in secret last year, with no faculty input to speak of. I have the feeling our board is going to want to conduct a much more open process. They also agreed that future meetings would be held when UO was in session. All in all I’m very optimistic.
3/28/2014 8:30 AM Live-blog: Come on down, they’ve got free coffee.
The kerfuffle yesterday reminds me of what happened in 2012, when Randy Geller tried to slide a new random drug testing policy for athletes through over the summer. The faculty fought back, and Geller sent out this snarky email to the Senate President and the IAC Chair:
Dear Rob [Senate President Kyr] and Brian [IAC Chair McWhorter]:
I received your email of July 24, 2012, requesting a delay in the public hearing scheduled for August 23rd, 2012. The hearing will be rescheduled for September 13, 2012. Written comments will be accepted until noon on September 14, 2012. We will similarly postpone the date the rule will be filed with the Secretary of State and become final. The rule will be filed on September 21, 2012.
Your allegations about the University’s rulemaking processes are offensive and false , as are the comments made publicly by members of the Intercollegiate Athletics Committee. I ask that you apologize in writing to President Berdahl, Rob Mullens, and me. I also ask that you censure the members of the IAC who have published offensive and defamatory comments.
Randolph Geller
General Counsel
University of Oregon
Nothing came of his threats, of course.
Now on to today’s live-blog:
President Gottfredson reads a housekeeping motion on fees and tuition, passes.
Board returns to policy on board authorities. No Dotters-Katz? Susan Gary proposes adopting policy with automatic sunset. Wants the minutes to reflect that the Senate will convene an ad hoc committee of the Senate, including Bonine, to collect comments and report by April 30. The Senate will take the comments and make proposals to fix Geller’s policy. She reads the motion.
[Strange, I don’t see anything like this policy on the Oregon State Board website. How is it that UO urgently needs it and OSU doesn’t?]
Geller looks sad. Motion passes unanimously. Big win for shared governance!
Gottfredson proposes a “strategic retreat” for the board. I believe this is a loophole under the public meetings law, that will allow them to meet in secret. [Update: No, the DOJ’s public meetings law has already ruled on this – retreats are open, public meetings.]
Allyn Ford raises the question of when the UO Board will take responsibility for conducting an evaluation of President Gottfredson. [Last year OUS did a secret evaluation. Gottfredson didn’t ask the faculty to provide feedback or even tell them he was being reviewed].
Lillis discusses setting goals for the performance review. Important that board gives Gottfredson information on what metrics he will be reviewed. Lillis notes that it’s important to set the schedule of board meetings for times when UO is actually in session – not like this meeting!
Willcox asks if the board can get summary of meetings, minutes, agendas out sooner. Geller says Tim Clevenger is working on a summary for this session.
9:27, board adjourns.
Yesterday 3/27/2014: UO Board meeting live-blog. Short version:
Encouraging to see Chuck Lillis in charge of the meeting. Inspires a certain amount of confidence.
Gottfredson and Geller try a power grab. The new Board policy on rights and responsibilities was prepared by Geller and due to be ratified by the board today. I found it on the Trustee’s website, here: http://trustees.uoregon.edu/sites/trustees3.wc-sites.uoregon.edu/files/field/image/March%202014%20Agenda%20032114%20-%20final%20-%20post.pdf
Apparently the board had no plans to show this document to the UO Senate before ratifying it. No one on the faculty even knew of it until I started emailing it to people on Tuesday night. (Except the sole faculty member on the board, Susan Gary, who helped draft it, but did not tell anyone about it)
The proposed policy takes significant amounts of power away from the faculty.
John Bonine prepared a rushed but comprehensive dissection last night, got up at 6:30, revised it, and presented it to the board during their public comment period. See below for his full text. But at first it seemed that the board was going to ram it through today anyway, pretty much as is.
There was lots of pushback from several board members. Very encouraging to see this. Student member Sam Dotters-Katz made a strong case that a new board didn’t want to get off to a bad start with something this important.
In the end the board decided to delay at least until tomorrow’s meeting, and potentially for 10 additional days, to seek faculty input. Still not clear how much input the faculty will get and how. My read is that parts of this policy are indeed necessary for the board to do its work, other parts are an attempt by Geller and Gottfredson to consolidate their ongoing efforts to take power and responsibility away from the UO faculty.
Senate speakers: