UO Matters

Bagwhan Bean returns to UO

2012-06-01T09:14:00.000-07:00

6/1/2012: Rejoice, faculty! It's the first day of our glorious Provost Jim Bean's return to Johnson Hall. I'd make a public records request for a copy of his contract, but I'll be damned if I'm going to pay Bob Berdahl a dime for it. We don't have any say - we might as well drink the kool-aid and upgrade them both to a Rolls.

OPEN UP OUR UNION

2012-05-31T16:36:00.000-07:00

5/31/2012: Here's the latest email from the faculty union's Central Organizing Committee. They still will not allow regular faculty at the meetings where the plans that will determine how *our* union affects us are being made. Instead they are working only with the national union representatives, who have very different objectives than many of us do.

Like, for example, the dues rate. The national reps want *us* to pay 1.5 to 2% of *our* salary. The PSU union committee played a little hardball with the AAUP and got it down to 0.75%. I say 0.5%, tops.

Meanwhile, they are trying to distract our attention with meetings and surveys about the CBA. No, first let's get the rules of the game straight. The decisions being made now behind closed doors will determine if our union works for us or not. Insist they open up. The self-serving secrecy and condescending pap we get from Johnson Hall is enough to bear. We don't need the same from what we are so often told is *our* union.

Thanks, I feel better, here's the union email, enjoy:

What's Happening This Week

Deadline to volunteer for Bylaws and Constitution Committee

Open meetings to generate ideas for bargaining

Launch of bargaining survey

Preparations for our first contract negotiations are underway! Now is the time to get involved. In order to build a strong union and negotiate the best possible contract, we all need to be involved in the process. Here are ways to get involved right now:

1) Serve on the Bylaws and Constitution Committee. The Organizing Committee is looking for three additional volunteers to help research options and develop recommendations for our union’s formal structure. The committee expects to meet four times (once per month) between June and September with the goal of producing draft bylaws and a constitution for United Academics by the start of fall term – to then be reviewed and voted on by members. Work will begin in early June: contact the UA office by May 31 if you are interested in this work.

2) Set up or attend a meeting in your department or with any group of faculty. Get together with your colleagues to discuss what you’d like to see addressed at the bargaining table. Your participation ensures that your ideas will help shape our bargaining proposals. United Academics can provide help and support in setting up a meeting or let you know when your department has a meeting scheduled. If you aren’t able to make it to a department meeting, mark your calendar for one of these dates:

Thursday, May 31 at 11:00am (Owyhee Room, EMU)

Friday, June 1 at 1:30pm (Umpqua Room, EMU)

Wednesday, June 6 at 4:00pm (Location TBD)

Thursday, June 7 at 4:00pm (PLC 714)

Tuesday, June 12 at 2:00pm (Location TBD)

Wednesday, June 13 at 3:00pm (PLC 714)

3) Join an issue-research work group. Care about a particular issue, like health benefits? As preparation for bargaining, this summer faculty volunteers will be working in small groups to research numerous issues – salary, benefits, pensions, contracts, family policies, professional support, working conditions and more. If you’re interested in being part of the bargaining process, sign up soon: the first bargaining training session is Saturday, June 9!

4) Fill out the bargaining survey. All members of the United Academics bargaining unit will receive a survey via email this week. Take the time to identify your priorities and to provide thoughtful responses that explain why these issues are important to you.

Help make sure that by fall term our union can hit the ground running. Many hands make light work, as the saying goes. Contact United Academics at info@uauoregon.orgor 541-636-4714 to volunteer and get more information.

And when they came for the Asian-Americans ...

2012-05-31T08:19:00.000-07:00

5/31/2012 updates. The Volokh Conspiracy gives a round-up and some analysis. From Peter Schmidt in the Chronicle:

A national federation of more than 200 Indian-American groups has joined two other prominent Indian organizations in urging the U.S. Supreme Court to end race-conscious college admissions in a case involving the University of Texas at Austin.

and

Twenty-two current and former federal civil-rights officials have joined in urging the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down the race-conscious admissions policy at the University of Texas at Austin, arguing that it oversteps not only the Education Department's guidelines but also legal advice given to colleges by higher-education groups.

My impression of the many programs at UO that give racial and ethnic preferences to students and faculty is that while they are sometimes well intentioned, the people supporting them are either totally unaware of the law or trying to circumvent it. I'm hoping that the new VP for Diversity, Yvette Alex-Assensoh - who has a law degree - will move us towards more effective and legal alternatives based on SES instead.

5/30/2012: Scott Jaschik of InsideHigherEd on the amicus brief filed by Asian-American advocacy groups in *opposition* to affirmative action programs in Texas universities:

The brief filed Tuesday on behalf of Asian-American groups Tuesday focused less on the Texas admissions policy than on the consideration of race generally in college admissions. "Admission to the nation’s top universities and colleges is a zero-sum proposition. As aspiring applicants capable of graduating from these institutions outnumber available seats, the utilization of race as a 'plus factor' for some inexorably applies race as a 'minus factor' against those on the other side of the equation. Particularly hard-hit are Asian-American students, who demonstrate academic excellence at disproportionately high rates but often find the value of their work discounted on account of either their race, or nebulous criteria alluding to it," says the brief.

UO physicist Steve Hsu had opinion pieces in the NY Times and Bloomberg on this issue a while back. And UO's program to give $90,000 to departments that hire minorities, except Asian physicists, is described here. I'm not kidding. Maybe Tomlin should give the money for hiring Mormons?

Tuition to increase?

2012-05-30T21:23:00.000-07:00

The ODE reports:

The University will submit it’s proposal for a 6.1 percent tuition increase for resident undergraduates amounting to $459 hike from the 2011-12 academic year. Non-resident undergraduate rates are proposed to raise by only 3.6 percent, but due to a higher base number, the dollar amount is larger landing at a $945 hike on an already expensive $27,653.

In totally unrelated news BMW announced price increases last month. The costs of taking your family to away games has also shot up, and maid service on an 8,200 sq ft house is never cheap.

Bill Graves has more in the Oregonian, including some tricky stuff on student health insurance fees at PSU. ODE editorial here. 5/30/2012.

Kitzhaber hires a boss for Pernsteiner

2012-05-30T19:27:00.000-07:00

Because that's what's wrong with Oregon education - not enough administrators. Betsy Hammond has the story in the Oregonian. Never heard of this guy. Anyone? 5/29/2012:

He's an outsider with a reputation for shaking things up. Let's give him a chance.

Mostly positive editorial in Oregonian.

Oregon editorial on New Partnership

2012-05-30T11:12:00.001-07:00

5/30/2012: Wishywashy, here.

Enough pecksniffian cant, you fascist blethering guttersnipe of a cad.

2012-05-29T17:23:00.002-07:00

5/29/2012: At the most recent UO Senate meeting President Rob Kyr announced that Pres Berdahl had asked him to appoint committees to address three issues: conflicts of interest, personal attacks, and leadership. Don't get me started on the UO administration's surplus of conflicts of interests and their shortage of leadership. But the British Parliament has a long and honorable history of personal attacks, and their rules might be useful for us to consider.

MPs can be reprimanded using the words above in debate. William Safire published a bit on this back in1984, in honor of the addition of "fascist" to the list of banned insults. And just in case, the benches are famously set two sword lengths apart. Ironically, the full list of forbidden words is in the "Erskine May" or guide to parliamentary practice, which is copyrighted and not (legally) available online. Just like Oregon's public records manual, until a few years ago.

A few days ago there was an interesting discussion in the Guardian on the role of insults in the MP's civil discourse:

David Cameron's cheerful ripsnorter in the Commons, calling Ed Balls a "muttering idiot", was probably unparliamentary, yes – but it was also perfectly justified and it made decent political sense. I don't have much time for Speaker John Bercow but he was technically right to ask Cameron to withdraw the word "idiot". He immediately did so by calling him instead "the man who wrecked our economy", or something similar. If parliamentary debate descends to mere insults, it dies. But Balls is an idiot, and Cameron, who said plenty of detailed, serious things in the half-hour of Prime Minister's Questions, cheered everyone up no end by spanking the shadow chancellor....

... I don't want PMQs turned into a bloodless, bowdlerised shadow of its rowdy self. Politicians are now so wise in the arts of stalling and obfuscating and dodging journalists' questions that it has become more essential than ever for them to face the full force of their opponents. ... but grown adults should be able to do so within the boundaries of civilised language.

Of course, I think the "stalling and obfuscating and dodging" by the UO administration is a far worse problem than the personal attacks - which they also dole out in good measure. FWIW, some helpful rules from the House of Lords involving conflicts of interest are here. Thanks to Cory Doctorow for some of these links.

Beavs sweep Ducks on public records access

2012-05-28T09:20:00.001-07:00

5/28/2012: Back in November the RG editors criticized President Lariviere for the raises that brought down the Governor's wrath, noting that fully 40% of the money was going to administrators:

"Bad Politics, Good Policy: The UO invests its tuition money in (some) people"

... The documents list “special equity raises” of $3.1 million for 743 faculty members and $1.8 million for 417 administrators. The faculty raises averaged 6.98 percent; administrators’ increases averaged 7.68 percent. ...

How did the administration go about justifying raises for each other and benefits like cars and family Rose Bowl trips? The documents and thin rationalizations are here.

It took Nathan Tublitz more than three months to get this info via the public records process. Initially UO told him he'd have to pay $4,328.63 to see the records for all administrators. Tublitz narrowed his request to a few top administrators. Even after that it took more than a month, many emails, and a meeting of the Senate Transparency Committee to get UO to release this information.

Some faculty at Oregon State tried to get the same info for some of their top administrators, who also got some hefty raises. They sent the OSU public records officer an email, got a $35 estimate (should have asked for a fee waiver, this should be a slam dunk with their DA) and a week later they had the documents. Full dump here, warning 9MB file.

It's the coverup that destroys trust. In a few short months Bob Berdahl has managed to do some major damage to the improvements in public records transparency initiated by Lariviere. It's shameful. But I hadn't realized we were this far behind.

Handy sues county for public records

2012-05-28T08:20:00.001-07:00

5/28/2012: This suit may shed some interesting light on how Lane DA Alex Gardner deals with public records petitions, since SB242 gave him authority over UO public records. The requests in this story seem loosely related to Handy and Sorenson's violation of the public meetings law and they look very broad. Typically there would be some back and forth between the requestor and the agency on how to make the request manageable. That process seems to have broken down between Handy and the Lane County PR officer, leaving the courts to deal with it. Under state law the county will have to pay Handy's legal expenses if he wins his public records case in court.

The Giro and the Cannibal

2012-05-27T22:23:00.003-07:00

A little (more) transparency from the union

2012-05-25T09:37:00.000-07:00

5/25/2012: The union has issued a call for volunteers for various committees, here. Very good, a big step forward for transparency. ~~It's not clear if everyone who volunteers can participate, I assume so.~~ Apparently the by-laws committee is already stacked with insiders - the post says they only want three new members:

Serve on the Bylaws and Constitution Committee. The Organizing Committee is looking for three additional volunteers to help research options and develop recommendations for our union’s formal structure.

Notably absent from the list of committees looking for new members is the all important central Organizing Committee which is currently running the show. From what I can tell no one is allowed to attend this committee's meetings unless they demonstrate a willingness to work for interests of the union, as the current committee members see those interests.

On the other hand Bob Berdahl will not let *any* faculty member sit on his "Executive Leadership Council." Though of course Duck athletics director Rob Mullens does. So I'd say it's a Johnson Hall / Union Hall tie on muck, at the moment.

5/11/2012: Union posts names of organizing committee members, here. Apparently a few have asked to stay anonymous for fear of retaliation.

5/10/2012: At least *they* aren't charging us $200 to read their newsletter, here. They have a long way to go on transparency - their organizing committee meetings are closed, etc. There will be a drive by the ~~anti's~~ faculty opposed to unionization in fall to get the 30% of signatures needed to call a secret ballot election. I expect that will pass barely, and that the outcome of the election will be determined by people's impressions of the effectiveness and transparency of the union at that point. It's early days:

... Finally, we are beginning the work of building our union’s internal structure and organization. When faculty return for the fall term, we will begin a United Academics membership drive: the cards signed in the winter only registered support for the formation of a collective bargaining unit, but did not commit anyone to active membership in it. Joining the union is not mandatory for those in the bargaining unit, but those who choose to join the union will be eligible to vote on key decisions, such as a constitution and bylaws, election of officers, the dues structure, and ratification of the contract that is negotiated.

Ken DeVeboise's students go on hunger strike

2012-05-24T20:32:00.004-07:00

to support his efforts to get a permanent contract. 5/24/2012. It mostly worked, update from Dash Paulson in the ODE:

... The meeting produced an agreement to retain DeBevoise another year and for the College of Arts and Sciences to open up a “conversation” on establishing a Middle Eastern Studies program, according to an email released by Hungry for Education.

Berdahl takes UO back to the past, starring Frohnmayer and Bean

2012-05-24T15:17:00.002-07:00

5/24/2012: From an email sent out today by Bob Berdahl:

... As you know, my term as interim president ends September 15. I am optimistic about our search for the University of Oregon’s 17th president. I have begun preparing for the transition by convening a campus readiness team that is considering issues related to institutional boards, and by charging key members of the president’s office and Executive Leadership Team with laying groundwork for the next president. As part of the transition, I reached out to UO President Emeritus Dave Frohnmayer to ask him to serve as a part-time special assistant to the president for the summer. In this role, he will assist me with specific external relations and stewardship assignments, continuity of communications with key stakeholders and with institutional readiness issues involving the possible establishment of an institutional board. President Frohnmayer informed me that he will donate any increase in net pay for this period to fund student scholarships at the University of Oregon.

Provost Jim Bean is set to return July 1 and will transition back during June. The addition of Yvette Marie Alex-Assensoh as VP for Institutional Equity and Inclusion will occur Aug. 7. As you know, the coming school year will require us to begin the searches for new leadership at the School of Journalism & Communication and the Clark Honors College. Tim Gleason, our longest-serving dean, will step down after 16 years and return to teaching and scholarship after a sabbatical. David Frank, the first dean of the Clark Honors College, will also return to scholarship and the classroom.

We expect the campus enrollment to be approximately 25,000 for Fall 2012, reflecting an uptick in international students, stronger retention and higher overall yield rates. We still have work to do to increase our yield rate for Oregon’s best and brightest, as there is strong competition for these students in today’s market.

I will continue to apprise you of developments related to the presidential transition. As always, thank you for your efforts in advancing the university’s mission to serve students and the people of Oregon and beyond, through education and research.

Warm regards,

Bob Berdahl

Previous Frohnmayer contracts are here. The state Audits Division report on them from 7/14/2011 is here. Frohnmayer had to write UO a personal check repaying some money. Then there's this excerpt:

After this audit the UO law school wrote him a considerably tougher TRP contract, spelling out his academic responsibilities in some detail and cutting off his summer pay. Apparently he will donate this new summer pay to scholarships. Great.

I remember back in 2009, when Frohnmayer tried to convince already underpaid faculty to accept a voluntary 5% furlough cut. He didn't mention he wouldn't be taking it on the half of his pay that came through the UO Foundation. And it turned out that while he was pushing faculty to go along with the OUS furlough plan, he was also negotiating his own lucrative retirement deal with Pernsteiner. Conflict of interest?

As for Provost Jim Bean: welcome back from what we hope was a productive sabbatical, the docs are here.

Oregonians for Higher Education Excellence

2012-05-23T22:10:00.000-07:00

5/23/2012 update. The list of supporters for this PAC is growing, and as a commenter reports it now includes a Lillis. Updates here. I don't know that Bob Berdahl deserves credit, but it wouldn't surprise me.

This is part of what it will take to move the independent UO board part of Lariviere's New Partnership through the legislature. Last year the UO Foundation spent about $500,000 lobbying for it, near as I can tell.

The biggest problems with an independent board will be too much influence from sports boosters, too many of the governor's political appointees, and too little transparency. But those problems could hardly be worse at UO than they now are, and there's a lot of upside - so let's roll the dice!

5/22/2012: A new PAC, formed by Tim Boyle and John von Schlegell. Secretary of State filings here. "To support measures and initiatives that enhance excellence, innovation and affordability at Oregon's public universities" a.k.a. Lariviere's New Partnership.

There's big money behind this, ~~most of it~~ and not all of it from UO sports boosters:

5/22/2012: Click here for updates on the contributions. Thanks to Nigel Jaquiss of Willamette Week for the story, which I saw on Bojack.org. And if you're thinking of contributing, don't neglect Sam Dotters-Katz's SHEEN PAC, which has the same goal but slightly less cash on hand. 5/22/2012.

Oregon gives Nike $550,000

2012-05-23T20:43:00.001-07:00

From the RG, here. It's a special allocation from the state legislature, to help the Oregon Track Club pay for security at the Track and Field Olympic Trials. In totally unrelated news, the Springfield school district budget committee is meeting Thursday to figure out how to deal with cuts in state support for education. 5/23/2012.

Kitzhaber to UO: Drop dead.

2012-05-23T19:13:00.001-07:00

Two new OUS board appointees. From Bill Graves in the Oregonian:

James Middleton, president of Central Oregon Community College, will replace Preston Pulliams, president of Portland Community College, on the board beginning July 1.

Orcilia Zuniga Forbes, an experienced higher education administrator who most recently served as vice president of university advancement at Oregon State University,

Gov. John Kitzhaber appointed both Middleton and Forbes to the board and reappointed Jim Francesconi, a Portland attorney who has served on the board since 2007, to another term.

In December he appointed a WOU professor as one of two faculty members, the other is from OSU. There hasn't been a UO person on the board for maybe 5 years - it was Geri Richmond. Kitzhaber does still have two more slots to fill though. 5/23/2012:

Live notes from 5/23/2012 Senate meeting

2012-05-23T15:11:00.002-07:00

are not going to happen, I've got a defense. Live video is here.

I did catch the part where Bob Berdahl announced that Jim Bean would return as provost on July 1, after a transition starting June 1. Back of the envelope the cost to UO of Bean's strange sabbatical episode will work out to about $300,000, or about 10% of the entire annual cost of the Lariviere faculty raises. I'd make a public records request for his contract, to pin this down and see what sort of perks he's getting this time - but I'm not sure I can afford Berdahl's new fees. Hint.

Open access to scholarly research

2012-05-23T00:24:00.002-07:00

5/23/2012: From John Russell of the UO Libraries. The link to the petition to President Obama is at the bottom, you have to register to sign but it is quick.

Open access advocates have created a White House petition asking the President to consider expanding the Public Access Policy of the NIH (http://publicaccess.nih.gov/) to cover all journal articles generated from federally-funded research.

Why this petition? The deep pockets of publishers who wish to maintain their monopoly on the dissemination of scholarly information. For every discussion in Congress around providing public access to research supported by public funds, there are for-profit publishers who can spend our subscription dollars to ensure that Congress protects publisher interests. The White House’s petition platform stipulates that any petition receiving more than 25,000 signatures requires a response from the White House; the petition creators hope that an overwhelming response from the public will influence White House policy discussions about public access to research.

If you care at all about public access to federally-funded research, I encourage you to learn more about this issue and sign the petition:

Petition creator website: http://access2research.org/

Alliance for Taxpayer Access: Federal Research Public Access Act: http://www.taxpayeraccess.org/issues/frpaa/index.shtml

PolyMath’s Journal publishing reform page: http://michaelnielsen.org/polymath1/index.php?title=Journal_publishing_reform

UO Libraries’ Scholarly Communications page: http://libweb.uoregon.edu/scis/sc/

Link to petition: https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions/!/petition/require-free-access-over-internet-scientific-journal-articles-arising-taxpayer-funded-research/wDX82FLQ

John Russell
UO Libraries

Smashing particles with a 4.0

2012-05-22T00:45:00.000-07:00

5/22/2012:

A University of Oregon summer college prep program for underprivileged middle schoolers ally-ooped a Springfield teenager into the loving arms of Bill and Melinda Gates — who will pay for her college education from freshman year to doctoral degree. ...

“Particle physics,” she said. “What I really want to do is go to Switzerland to work with the large hadron collider, smashing particles together at speeds nearing the speed of light in attempts to re-create the big bang.”

Just read the whole story, it captures it all, wonderfully. From Diane Dietz in the RG.

UO professor gets First Amendment award

2012-05-21T23:29:00.000-07:00

from the Oregon chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, for putting the Oregon Public Records and Meetings Manual online, and for using the UO Matters blog to provide access to public records about the University of Oregon and OUS. Daily Emerald story here. Earlier story on the manual here. 5/21/2012.

Ethics complaint filed against Frohnmayer

2012-05-21T22:39:00.000-07:00

5/21/2012 update. The latest Oregon Bar complaint docs are here. Keeping up with Frohnmayer's ethics issues is a full-time job, I've only glanced at these, I think the meat is in the last few pages.

4/21/2012: I'm pretty sure this will only interest my law school readers, at best, but I thought I'd post this Oregon State Bar ethics complaint, filed in March by Valerie Wright against Frohnmayer, Bill Gary, and Deschutes County Counsel Mark Pilliod for the record. It's a twisted story.

Wright is a lawyer and the wife of Deschutes County DA Patrick Flaherty. From what I can tell Deschutes county hired our former Pres at $550 an hour last year to help Pilliod and the county commissioners with a Bar ethics complaint they were supporting against Flaherty, who had opened a grand jury investigation against Pilliod involving a relatively trivial sounding violation of public records law - or maybe I'm jaded. Or maybe this all goes back to Flaherty defeating the commissioner's favorite longtime DA in an election.

Wright alleges that in the course of pursuing the ethics complaint against her husband Frohnmayer and Gary and Pilliod made some false statements to the bar, so she's filing this ethics complaint against them:

Frohnmayer seems to have become a specialist in making ethics complaints against his fellow lawyers - he's got another one going against Oregon AAG Sean Riddell, apparently payback for Riddell looking too closely at the consulting deals of Kitzhaber's girlfriend Cylvia Hayes.

And now, after billing the county $550 an hour for pursuing a apparently politically inspired bar complaint against Flaherty, Frohnmayer gets a bit bitchy when OPB asked about the complaint against him:

Frohnmayer calls the complaint “a political use of the bar process."

I'm sure Dave's shocked. (Thanks to a reader for the link.)

Constructive engagement

2012-05-21T12:33:00.001-07:00

A reader asks:

What can UO Matters do at this critical juncture in the search process to create a constructive environment? How can UO Matters help market the UO to potential presidents?

What can be done now and in the next months and years to foster engagement between the faculty and the administration?

This Calico Cat thinks that all sides have now vented fully and repeatedly; there are no new issues. The question is: how do we escape Wonderland?

Comments welcome. 5/21/2012.

Note: these comments seem to have gotten a bit off track. Try here.

secretive PERS private equity investments

2012-05-20T19:42:00.000-07:00

5/20/2012: From Ted Sickinger in the Oregonian. I'm no finance professor, but there seems to be a lot of long-run downside risk here for the state - and not much for the investment advisors, who take their fees and bonuses off the top.

Senate election results, if it matters

2012-05-19T09:47:00.004-07:00

5/19/2012: Bob Berdahl's threats to veto faculty votes on who will chair our committees are getting more strident. And the administration has been setting up its own committees on important issues like policing, without even consulting the senate. But FWIW the senate and committee election results are now posted here.

Update: A comment posted by Pres Berdahl:

Once again, Bill Harbaugh tries to stir dissent with misinformation. I have NEVER threatened to veto Senate committee chairs. All I have ever said is that we could not bring to the Senate Transparency Committee a discussion of public records fee policy so long as the chair of that committee, Bill Harbaugh, has a conflict of interest about fee policy. This is not threatening to veto committee chair selections.

This comment raises still more questions - Berdahl is going to ignore the charge of a senate committee, purely on his own judgement about what constitutes a conflict of interest? Right.

On the veto issue, here's an email from him to the IAC a few days ago, emphasis added. Berdahl is correct about his veto threat point, in that this is not an explicit threat to veto the faculty's vote on who should be IAC chair.

On Fri, 18 May 2012 17:25:21 +0000, Bob Berdahl wrote:
Nathan,

This will be my last word on this matter. I am not going to waste
any more time on it. You asked that I publicly acknowledge that the
athletic department is not self- supporting, based on the USA piece. I
did so. Although the USA data included revenue that may be
challenged, as I pointed out, I accepted the 2.8% as the number to be
compared to other universities. By that number, which is the only
apples to apples number we have, UO's subsidy is lower than 212 out of
227 universities.

Now you seem to be rejecting the USA report because you think the
number is higher. And you cite the other subsidies the university
provides. My response is simply that everywhere i have been, the
universities provide similar services. The UO is not unique in this
no matter what you may think. And many of those services -- general
counsel, public records, public safety, senior management,
parking--are provided all auxiliaries.

You reject the notion that athletic scholarships paid to the
university are a source of revenue for the university. Tuition is not
counted by USA, so it is not a part of that calculation. However,
because non-resident tuition subsidizes the education of residents --
non-residents pay more than the actual cost of education, the
difference between the cost of educating students and what the
athletic department pays is revenue to the university.

None of these calculations, of course, count the intangible benefits
-- the visibility via television exposure, the enthusiasm of alumni,
the benefit to the city and local businesses that come from the
athletic program. These intangible benefits can't be measured, but
they are real.

Thus, I conclude that the only analysis of the institutional support
for athletics, the one you asked me to respond to, shows the UO to
look very good compared with other Division 1 schools.

I do not think that an uncritical booster should be chair of the IAC, but neither do I believe a relentless and unfair critic should chair it either.

Please share this email with the entire committee.

Bob Berdahl

Earlier correspondence between Berdahl and the IAC is here. There's been a lot more lately, I'll post when I get a chance in a day or two. For now I'll just point out that Berdahl's comments on athlete tuition (which originate with Jim Bean) would make sense, except for the fact that we don't have a shortage of non-athlete out-of-staters willing to come to UO and pay the tuition.

And most of those are better students than the out-of-state athletes that the AD recruits. Many of those players (though certainly not all!) have academic records that require special dispensation from the admissions office. And they then require the $2 million in special jock box tutoring, subsidized by tuition money from the regular students.

It quacks like a subsidy, and it is a subsidy. I hope our next president will recognize that fact, and then move on to helping us reduce it, instead of trying to subvert the work of the IAC.

Retention raise for Robin Holmes

2012-05-18T17:08:00.005-07:00

5/18/2012: VPSA Robin Holmes was one of three finalists for the VPSA job at Virginia Tech. She withdrew before the campus visits, apparently in return for a raise from $193,128 to $233,000 as of May 1, 2012. If rumor is correct she also got all expense paid trips to the Rose Bowl for self and family. Not that I'm jealous. Pretty nice retention raise, considering she didn't have an offer in hand and didn't even have to do a flyout. There's more on the special treatment UO's central administrators get for raises here, thanks to a public records request from Nathan Tublitz. And thanks to an anonymous reader for this tip. Given Berdahl's new public records fees we're either going to need to get more info on JH's backroom deals this way or take a serious hit to the scotch budget. So please help UO Matters keep things flowing freely.