UO Matters

NCAA wastes Gottfredson's time on more sports crap

2013-05-22T23:43:00.003-07:00

5/23/2013: UO is on the verge of being kicked out of the AAU.

Meanwhile, the pissant jock-sniffers on the NCAA Infractions Committee - yes, UO Law Professor Emeritus Jim O'Fallon, I think you are a pissant jock-sniffer - don't think the UO President has anything important to do with his time. So they "invite" him to come to their meeting in Indianapolis and explain to their pompous selves what coach Chip Kelly did wrong at UO, years before, and how much UO should now pay for his sins.

OK, I know I've bitched about Gottfredson's $540K salary. But putting up with people like this? Triple it and he's still underpaid. Assuming, of course, that the athletic department and their boosters are the ones compensating him for this humiliation, and not our students. And for his travel expenses to Indianapolis. And I hope that ticket was first-class.

...

Full document here. These documents are public only because, after more than a year of O'Fallon trying to hide this expensive disaster from the UO IAC and the press, I found this ruling from Dave Frohnmayer's DOJ in 1981, stating that NCAA infractions documents were public records in Oregon.

Senate: Wed May 22, 3 to 5:30. Updated with proposed motion of no confidence.

2013-05-22T15:19:00.000-07:00

Update: A hearty congratulations to the losers of the Senate and committee elections. Names of the unfortunate winners are posted here.

Agenda: Here and below. Legal services, new course approvals, perhaps a motion calling for amendments to SB270 to incorporate the constitution.

Regarding the UO Board legislation, SB 270. FAQ here.

Live blog disclaimer: My interpretation of what people said, meant to say, or what I wished they'd said. Nothing is a quote unless in quotes.

3:00 pm 1. Call to Order
3:02 pm 2. State of the University

2.1 Remarks by Robert Kyr, Senate President

Meet w/ Rob tonight, 6:00-9:00pm at Collier House to give him input for his testimony tomorrow the the State Legislature on SB270.

Kyr: We've been dealt a bad hand over the past few years, as a university we've done as well as possible with it.

3:20 pm 3. New Business

3.1 UO Senate Leadership and Service Award for Officers of Administration;
Presented to Stephanie Bosnyk, Assistant Dean of Operations, Lundquist College of Business (Jim Bean came in second.)

Standing ovation, very nice remarks.

3.2 UO Senate Classified Staff Leadership Award;

Presented to Richard Daniels, Outgoing Mail Specialist
Unable to make the meeting, he's enjoying his retirement traveling. Very personable written remarks - handy with plumbing and can run a sewing-machine! Slips in a pitch for SEIU and for higher compensation for staff. Slick.

3.3 Wayne Westling Award;

Presented to Paul Engelking; Professor (Chemistry)
Kyr: Paul's put UOCC minutes and process onto the web, improving transparency and efficiency.
Engelking: Remembers Wayne Westling with admiration. Great story about how he (Paul) was tricked into becoming Senate president.

Paul Simonds, Senate Parliamentarian: As oldest "dead president" he inducts Kyr into the society, with two bottles of wine, one for each year. Might be worth showing up at Collier House tonight.

3.4 Motion (Legislation): Spring Curriculum Report;

Paul Engelking, Chair; Committee on Courses
Approved.

3.5 Motion (Legislation): Authorization to Award Degrees; Robert Kyr, Senate President
Approved.

3.6 Announcement of Spring Election Results (Kyr)

3.7 Introduction of New Senators (Kyr)
Yeah. Good group.

3.8 Signing of Facilities Scheduling Policy & the Conferral of Posthumous Degrees
Policy (Kyr)
Pres Gottfredson has agreed and is signing. Free at last.

3.9 Academic Freedom & Freedom of Speech Policy (Kyr)
Gottfredson wants to divide these into 2 policies, so we'll put these off until next year. Strange - the union contract has a lot to say about these issues as well.

3.10 Legal Services Policy; Margie Paris (Law), Senate President-Elect & Chair, Legal Representation Policy Review Committee
Paris: Harbaugh noticed that the UO is now independent of the DOJ, Stahl suggested removing that part. She now proposes delaying until fall so she can consult with UO's General Counsel.

3.11 Senate-Administration Joint Review of the Office of Research, Innovation,
and Graduate Education [RIGE] (Kyr)
Committee's report was due June 15, but it will take much longer.
Blonigen: We have a big charge, putting the committee together took a long time, lots to deal with here. Hopes to meet with stakeholders and with the many complainants about RIGE's operations and Espy over the rest of the term, then work over the summer to benchmark RIGE with other universities, hope to have report in the fall.

3.12 Motion (Legislation): Committee Requirements with Moderate Revisions, Slate 2
(Tenth-Year Review 2013); Robert Kyr, Senate President & Chair, Tenth-Year Review (Committee on Committees)
Kyr: Moderate revisions to campus planning and the committee on committees.

Campus planning: "Committee shall be consulted early in the process"
Harbaugh and Mitchell propose amendment to include all facilities controlled by UO. Keyes brings up land use issues. Paris proposes postponing til we can figure it out. Approved.

Committee on committees: This committee is supposed to appoint the faculty members of the administration's advisory groups, when appropriate. Gottfredson has not been doing this. Motion strengthens the Senate's hand a little.
Approved unanimously.

3.13 Motion (Legislation): Working Groups for Administrative Advisory Groups (Paris)
Paris: During the review of committees we discovered that there are a lot of administrative advisory groups that are "owned" by specific administrators. Sullivan: Amendment to allow looking into all such working groups. Approved unanimously.

3.14 Motion (Legislation): Working Groups for Faculty Research Awards Committee (Paris)
Approved unanimously

The Senate is now an hour ahead of schedule!

5:25 pm 4. Open Discussion

Stahl: Announces that Nathan Tublitz wants to submit a notice of motion for a vote of no confidence in President Gottfredson.

Woah! Here is the text of Tublitz's motion, posted with his permission:

Dear Senate President Kyr and Vice President Paris:

Last week I put forward to the Senate a motion of no confidence in President Gottfredson. The following day, after a meeting with the Senate Executive Committee and some FAC members, I agreed to hold off submitting my notice of motion only if the President endorsed the University Constitution and put forward his best effort to ensure that SB270 contained a clause guaranteeing our right to develop and maintain our own internal governance system free from interference by outside groups, including any future UO Board.

The statement released yesterday by the President on his website (http://president.uoregon.edu/content/president-gottfredson%E2%80%99s-comments-shared-governance [1]) contained no such statement. Neither did the "press release" issued today on his behalf by Administrative Spokesperson Barbara Altmann. Nor has such a statement been issued at the current union negotiations by the Administration's bargaining team which speaks for the President. It is clear that the President has no intention to ensure the continued existence of our ability to generate our own internal governance system, a right enshrined in the 1876 University Charter and which has been the foundation of our governance system for the past 137 years.

The President's unwillingness to go to bat to secure our governance system is the latest of many his actions since he took office that, taken together, demonstrate a disturbing lack of leadership and understanding of the University's history and traditions.

Therefore, with this email I formally give notice to the Senate Leadership of a motion of no confidence in President Gottfredson. There is no Constitutional reason not to accept my notice of motion. Thus, please add my notice to the Senate agenda for tomorrow's meeting and announce the notice of motion at the Senate meeting.

Please confirm in writing that you will add the motion to the Senate docket and that the motion will be announced at tomorrow's meeting.

Sincerely, Nathan Tublitz

Kyr: This is now an executive session, under the Oregon public meetings law, because this is a personell matter.

No blogging about the exec session, because I am registered with the Oregon Secretary of State as an "Institutionalized News Media Organization" and the public meetings law forbids me from reporting on this. I'll be back when the executive session part is over.

5:32: Executive session is over. Can't say what was discussed, but the Senate will not be voting on this proposed motion at this meeting, which is the last until Fall.

Kyr: I am very happy that Margie Paris is now taking over as Senate President.

Long standing ovation for Kyr. My opinion is that Kyr has done a stellar job as Senate President and has fully earned the respect of the faculty which he now holds, for his untiring, selfless, and productive service during two incredibly difficult years. He's negotiated many minefields and has come out of them with the respect of those who've worked with him, and at times against him. I say that despite having had him shoot me down on a few issues. We've been lucky to have him, and it's great news for UO that he will continue to serve on the Senate.

5:35 pm Adjournment

UO students ask "Where's our President"?

2013-05-22T10:09:00.000-07:00

5/22/2013: From UO's Public Records log:

President's Calendar
Requester: Ekblad, Nicholas
Organization: The Commentator
Initial Request Date: 05/22/2013
Status: Requesting/Reviewing Records
I would like to request the president's calendar from January 8th 2013 to the present

President Gottfredson's public records office made me pay $108 for an earlier version, and wait 2 months. Pdf here. Let's see what sort of hoops Gottfredson makes our students jump through, and how much he redacts. The Student Press Law Center has an interesting post on efforts by students at other universities to get this information on their presidents. The Oregon Commentator post explaining their request, and commenting on the sad state of UO's public records process, is here: http://oregoncommentator.com/2013/05/22/what-will-gottfredson-hide-this-time/.

"Ask Greg Rikhoff"

2013-05-22T08:59:00.001-07:00

5/22/2013: It's well known on campus that President Gottfredson generally ignores emails from the faculty. But now he's got a new chief of staff, Greg Rikhoff. In celebration I'm starting a new "Ask Greg Rikhoff" column. I'll get it started with two questions, and I'll add the answers when I get them. If you have a question you'd like to see asked, I'm happy to act as intermediary.

From: Bill Harbaugh

Subject: Fwd: [Econ_faculty_staff] cas-heads: Open Letter from the Deans to UO Community

Date: May 21, 2013 10:42:48 PM PDT

To: Gregory Rikhoff

Hi Greg:

The letter [from the Deans in support of SB270] says

"members of the elected Senate Budget Committee were key participants in this year’s budget setting process"

I'd appreciate it if you could send me a complete list of the members of this committee or working group or advisory group, and a copy of it's charge.

Thanks,

Bill Harbaugh

UO Prof of Economics

On 5/13/2013 I asked President Gottfredson the question below. No response. So yesterday I emailed Greg Rikhoff about it. I'll post the reply below when it comes in.

From: Bill Harbaugh <harbaugh@uoregon.edu>

Subject: Question about UO Board legislation

Date: May 13, 2013 12:01:05 PM PDT

To: President Gottfredson <pres@uoregon.edu>

Dear President Gottfredson:

I have a question regarding the proposed independent board legislation, which I hope you will answer by email - I'll be unable to attend the governance meeting in Gerlingher tomorrow.

What I think is the latest draft of the legislation, at https://olis.leg.state.or.us/liz/2013R1/Downloads/CommitteeMeetingDocument/19825, says:

“SECTION 2a. A university with a governing board is a governmental entity performing governmental functions and exercising governmental powers. A university with a governing board is not considered a unit of local or municipal government or a state agency, board, commission or institution for purposes of state statutes or constitutional provisions. ...

I am wondering if this legislation will affect UO's obligations under the public records and meetings law, if the UO Board will also be subject to these laws, and if the responsibility for handling appeals of Public Records denials from UO or the board will shift from the Lane County DA to the State DOJ or to another office.

Thank you,

Bill Harbaugh

UO Prof. of Economics

Bargaining XXII: Admin counter on raises?

2013-05-21T08:05:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, 5/21/2013, 8-12 AM, Room 122 Knight Library, open to the public and reporters, free coffee ~~and maybe donuts~~.

Your Guarantee of Truthiness: All UO Matters bargaining posts fact-checked by Randy Geller, HLGR and their lobbyist and public relations consultant, (and former Frohnmayer aide) Marla Rae.

Latest Fact Check: HLGR's fact checkers agree with UO Matters that their colleague Dave Frohnmayer was negotiating his fat golden parachute retirement deal with Pernsteiner, at the same time he was trying to convince the faculty to take 5% furlough pay cuts. My post here, Frohnmayer's pissy email here, their fact check here - they misinterpret my statement about his pay and ignore the screen shot of his pay records, don't explain how it is that he's listed on the HLGR bargaining invoice but is supposedly not advising the admin bargaining team, and then let the furlough/parachute statement pass their fact-checking without comment.

Synopsis:

Still no admin counter on raises. After bringing in another $29M in tuition revenue this year, Jamie Moffitt is still piling on reserves to prepare for tornadoes. Top priorities such as the new cop car fleet are fully budgeted for, and there's no money left for professors, unless OUS agrees to another round of tuition hikes.
UO's reserves are about twice OSU's. We are sitting on ~$63M more cash than they are, but somehow can't afford the ~$12M difference between the admin and union raise proposals.
Faculty will be required to tug the forelock and address administrators as "The University", because the administrators in Johnson Hall are just that petty and insecure. President Gottfredson does not care what Frank Stahl and the Senate say about what the university is. It's him.
Faculty support for boycott of Mike "The University" Gottfredson's Matt Court investiture ceremony grows.
After calling for proposals to find money for raises, The University is now going to ignore the Senate resolution calling for a cut in athletic subsidies.

Prologue:

2 to 1 that Rudnick will come out of the turn and into the backstretch all nicey-nice, and fold on the we are "The University" language. No give on governance. More stalling on pay - though the news that Gottfredson's compensation is in the top quartile, and UO's reserves are twice OSU's, might even embarrass her. No, I'm not putting any scotch on that last one.
Time for the administration to get serious - they've been sitting on the union's raise counter for weeks. Meanwhile Rudnick and her consultants are charging UO about $50,000 a month, for every month they can drag it out. Or maybe more - President Gottfredson's public records office now wants me to pay $550, just to see one month of invoices.

Live-Blog: My take on what people said or meant to say. Nothing is a quote unless in quotes.

Cast: The usual cast of overpaid bill-padding HLGR types, Gleason and Blandy, no Cecil.

Rudnick: Nominations for Safety Committee.

Rudnick: Passes out summary of Moffitt's revenue forecast for 13-14 and 14-15. Tries to use this to argue they can't afford faculty raises. Bulk of it is a fall in grant funding, even though much of that has little to do with money available for faculty salaries. Fall in sports action lottery revenue that goes to the jocks anyway. Irrelevant. Sneaky attempt to confuse the faculty, Jamie. But we expect no less from you at this point.

Rudnick: Costing information for your last round of economic proposals. Always amusing to hear Rudnick stumble her way through a spreadsheet. "Um, line item so to speak ... Um overall the proposal that you made came down about $2M." "Needless to say we were very disappointed in you". But we don't even have counter proposals for you yet, we will wait to hear from OUS about tuition increases.

Mauer: We understand there is a limited amount of money and competing demands. We don't accept your premise that faculty salaries depend on new revenue. Your thinking is that all other existing costs are immutable. We don't accept that. We think the university has a large amount of money, needs to prioritize and budget. ($750M budget, we're arguing about $12M.) We come to the table with an important set of priorities that need to be a priority. We are not here to take the leftovers. Whatever happens with tuition will determine the budget but it will not change the relevant priorities. It's been 4 weeks now since we put our proposal on the table. They were reasonable (say 2% of the total budget?). Even if you accepted these, we would still be at or near the bottom of the AAU. (President Gottfredson's pay is in the top 25% of his peers - first year in the job.)

We have many suggestions about where to cut. Your thinking is skewed. Faculty pay should not be at the bottom of UO's priorities.

Rudnick: I reject your claim that priorities are wrong. You are ignoring the fiscal realities of this university. (Now she's an expert on fiscal realities?) The people working on this are working hard to keep the university's priorities secret from the faculty, that's why President Gottfredson has set up a Budget Committee outside Senate purview. We cannot ignore the fiscal realities. Police, athletics, administrative pay, and my hefty feees all come first. That's just the reality. We only have $63 million more in reserves than OSU does, and we cannot afford to pay you $20 million of that. We will have a counter proposal for you next session, but it's going to be far from what you are asking.

Mauer: You should say "we are going to pay the faculty and then decide how much to spend" on fluff. So, the proposal on the table is funded and will not be withdrawn? You are saying that if there are tuition increases you will re-examine your office? Rudnick: Yes. Gleason: We will not come back with a smaller offer. Rudnick: Correct. OUS F&A committee will recommend tuition increases at their Friday meeting, they won't be approved until June.

Rudnick and Gleason now get flustered about these increases. The tuition increase money will not be available dollar for dollar for raises. It's a matter of fiscal prudence. We can't give you more money without the increases. We have incorporated these tuition increases into our budget, but not into your raises.

Mauer: So, why not bargain with us assuming you will get these increases, in the same way that you form the rest of your budget, and then come back to readjust if the increases don't come through? Rudnick: Because your raises are the last priority of the administration. Mauer: It's frustrating when you come to the table with no authority. Rudnick starts to flip out again: "We represent the University!" Where the hell did this outburst come from? Mauer: You come to the table and tell us this is the way it is because Bean says it is, then you won't bring him to the table to talk to the faculty?

Mauer: Let's take a short break... We're back.

Rudnick, snidely, "Are you ready to get back to work?" Mauer: We are working, lets get back to the economics, then do new counters.

Mauer: You are claiming there's no money, we want you to show more specific information to support that claim. Rudnick: Tell me what you want. Mauer: We want to see your projections for spending by administrative unit, so we can figure out why faculty salaries come last. I'll get you specific questions in writing. On the general topic of tuition and faculty salaries, it's a fact that there have been large increases in tuition revenue, but little change in faculty salaries. We need to understand this. Rudnick: Doesn't understand the question, tries to blame this on the comments by the OUS Chancellor on tuition increases. Green: Let me explain the question again. Faculty see tuition go up, more students, no raises. So we don't see an empirical correlation between tuition and salary. And yet now you are trying to assert one in order to argue against raises. You're new here, so maybe you don't get this. But explain yourself. (Perfect opportunity for Gleason or Blandy to jump in and embarrass themselves. Gleason gives it a shot, but Rudnick interrupts him. Come on Sharon, let Gleason run free, it's part of the fun of this all.)

Rudnick: After years of no raises, some faculty did get raises! And we are proposing ones that will still leave you at the bottom of the AAU. And we've increased administrative hiring 20% over 5 years, and only 9% for TTF's. You people are already taking to much of the pie. You may not like the fact that we don't have economic proposals yet but we are building a budget and we will not let you see it! I'm going to lecture you some more about budgeting, and then accuse you of stalling. We are going to wait for Friday's F&A meeting before we talk money anymore. Mauer: Our philosopher would like to explain some things.

Pratt: Were have you cut and were will you cut next. This is a chance for you to build some much needed credibility, Sharon. Rudnick interrupts. Gleason interrupts. He can't make a sensible statement. Pratt: What else might be cut? Rudnick: Books, IT, ... Pratt: Have you told units that cuts are coming? Blandy: Money was held centrally for raises. Whoops, he didn't mean to say that. Pratt asks about enrollment advancement, etc. Their budgets are way up. Blandy: Don't know about that. Davidson: Stop calling a 10% raise after 10 years for NTTF's "generous" especially when the central administrators have seen regular raises to keep them at comparators. There's no shared sacrifice, and so I don't take it seriously when the president claims he represents the entire university. Rudnick: There's no fat in the administration to cut. Goes on to lecture us ... Pratt: I was asking where you would cut if tuition is not increased. Blandy reveals there's a plan. Gleason: blah blah incoherent blah ... He thinks he's being clever... "These are the hydraulics" Gag me. Please Tim, do tell us more.

Here are some places to cut:

Academic Affairs: 100% increase or $3.5 million, and they can't even find the faculty handbook any more:

Police: 150% increase, or $3.1 million:

LCB: Gotta love these guys: Instructional salaries up about 45%, administrative costs up 200%.

College of Ed: Overall budget up 40%, Dean and Central admin costs have more than doubled, to $5.4 million.

Enrollment Management. Roger Thompson's shop. Overall budget up only about 50%, but administrative costs are up 600%.

General Counsel's office: Randy's now hiding all the money he's paying Sharon Rudnick and her friends, but his un-top-secret budget has doubled anyway.

Provost's Office: Up 130%. An extra $1.1 million for the jock box. $1.2 million for "Provost Reserve".

Portland: Most of these costs are hidden in colleges, but general fund subsidies are up by 200% or $1 million.

University Relations: Michael Redding more than tripled his office's budget. An extra $2.2 million a year. Impressive.

VPSA Robin Holmes: Succeeded in almost doubling her administrative costs. Bowl junkets not included.

Institutional Research: Knowledge is at the heart of any modern, well-run organization. And sure enough, UO's IR budget has increased by 5% over the past 5 years. Total.

OK, back to bargaining:

Blandy: We need more money for administration - we can't administer with our current budget. More important to increase administrative spending than hire more faculty, that's why we've piled on 20% more admins and only 9% more faculty of the past 5 years. And these our still our priorities - we need to build up "The University" and that means more administrators.

Psaki: You need money? Look at the Senate resolution to cut athletic subsidies. It will bring in $2.5M in recurring funds for faculty by ending a few of the athletic subsidies, and another $1.8M for scholarships.

Green goes on about how out of touch Rudnick is. Anyone who'd been around campus would understand why the faculty knows it is not the top priority. Gleason: That's not what I hear from my faculty (I can't imagine why they don't talk honestly with you, Tim.) Rudnick is insulted because the union called her last proposal ludicrous and insulting. She's insulting me. She's ludicrous. Then she goes into a long lecture about perceptions and cognitive psychology. Then she tells us we should stop talking economics and get on to counterproposals on other articles. Then she goes back to her talk about how it took years for Frohnmayer to get the faculty into this hole and it will take years of pain and suffering by you faculty peons before you are even close to being made whole. Then she gets onto the question of tornados. I'm not making this shit up.

We have $63 million more in reserves that OSU does, but we cannot pay the faculty an extra $12M because we are worried about a Tornado. Fire this woman now, President Gottfredson.

Mauer: Before we move on: You've said you are talking about a 10% raise by July 1 2014? Rudnick: Yes. Mauer: You understand that all the merit will not happen by then? Anyway, let's move on.

Rudnick: Ethical conduct, Consulting and IP will be on Th, with Chuck Williams from RIGE.

Preamble: Admin counter.
Rudnick: We accept all your changes except you are still going to have to address us as "The University" because the senior administrators in Johnson Hall are just that petty and insecure. There will never be a contract that does not call them "The University".

Art 2: Classification and rank. Admin counter.
Snoozer, lots of productive back and forth.

Art 16: Arbitration: Union counter.
Rudnick: Under what circumstances could an arbitrator award tenure? Mauer: They couldn't. We agree about this last time.

Art 18: Discipline and Termination for cause. Union counter.
Gleason makes an ass of himself again over the definition of a phone call. Rudnick tries to smooth it over. "We're very close on this article too."

Art 32: Sabbatical. Union counter.
Mauer: Minor changes in accordance with our last discussion.

Gotta go, see you Th.

Kitzhaber plan to throw ORP faculty under the bus?

2013-05-20T21:33:00.000-07:00

5/20/2013: Panic update: Hannah Hoffman reports that negotiations are on again. One mathy prof reports that this would cut his retirement income by 40%.

5/16/2013: Hannah Hoffman has the news that Kitz has bailed on this plan. The Republicans aren't willing to raise taxes on the richest 2% in exchange. And state tax revenues are up. And the stock market is up so much that PERS is back to looking fairly robust. So PERS looks safe for this session at least.

5/15/2013: Too early to panic, but many UO faculty switched from PERS Tier 1 to ORP in 1996 when it was introduced. Their PERS balances have accumulated since then, and when they retire they typically use the money match formula, which doubles the balance, which they then take as an annuity. This is presumably how people like Dave Frohnmayer get $257K a year in PERS, even though his salary when he left the plan was only $121K. Obviously the deal for most faculty is considerably smaller, but still potentially $50-60K a year. The reports on Kitzhaber's new plan say it would prevent people who have left PERS from getting the money match. Instead they'd have to use a considerably less generous plan, based on their last years of earnings while in the plan - i.e. 1996. No inflation adjustment! Would this also apply to UO faculty who switched out but still work for the state? Not yet clear. Also not clear if this will get through the legislature - the Democrats and unions are opposed, but it may be the price of income tax increases for the top 2%.

OK, start panicking. In response to a Q from UO M, former UO student journalist Hannah Hoffman, now at the Salem Journal and the reporter of the best piece on this so far, offers her interpretation:

... “inactive” is anyone no longer in the PERS system. That would include anyone who left it for another retirement plan. If the employer isn’t making contributions to PERS for them, and they aren’t contributing to PERS, they won’t count. It’s all preliminary, and there may be exceptions, but it looks like it would apply to these faculty.

Or maybe not quite yet: Ernie Pressman from HR, one the many excellent UO administrators who keep this place working, and are not afraid to answer questions, reports that he is on it:

I am acutely aware of this situation and am working with OUS on the definition of “inactive” and how that applies to ORP participants.

Or maybe panic right now: response to a query from Hannah Hoffman, from PERS spokesperson:

From: David CROSLEY <david.crosley@state.or.us<mailto:david.crosley@state.or.us>>Date: May 16, 2013, 9:34:13 AM PDT
To: "Hoffman, Hannah"Subject: Re: Question about inactive members

Hi Hannah:
If a non-vested Tier One or Tier Two member elects the OUS Optional Retirement Plan (ORP), the member's account is transferred to the ORP and membership in PERS is terminated.

Vested Tier One or Tier Two members who elect the ORP may leave their PERS accounts intact or transfer their accounts to the ORP. Those who leave their accounts with PERS become inactive PERS members. To the extent any legislation affects inactive members, they would be affected as would any other inactive member, with the hedge that the actual impact cannot be determined until the actual text of a bill is reviewed. Vested members who transfer their accounts to the ORP terminate PERS membership.

Best regards,
David Crosley

There's more in the persinfo blog here, under "Train Robbery".

Gottfredson's fire sale on UO Board emails

2013-05-20T21:12:00.000-07:00

5/20/2013: I'm guessing these emails about legislation for a UO Board of trustees - a matter of legitimate public interest to many in the state - are now well past their sell-by date, hence the discount. The Register-Guard originally requested them 10 weeks ago:

From: Bill Harbaugh

Subject: Re: PR request for Boyd documents

Date: May 20, 2013 8:49:26 PM PDT

To: Dave Hubin , Gregory Rikhoff , President Gottfredson

Hi Dave:

I don't understand the email below from your Public Records Officer, regarding emails about the drafting of legislation for an independent UO board.

She says her original estimate was unclear. No, it was perfectly clear, to the penny: $1065.29 to see a few emails.

What is unclear is why the sudden 40% discount she's now offering. I've asked before for an explanation of the PR Office's policies on fees. You wouldn't give me anything substantive. Why not?

Please forward an explanation for this unexpected 40% sale price. If I don't buy at $639.18, is there a chance you'll come down more? Does the answer depend on how much I can embarrass you, Randy Geller, and President Gottfredson over using these charges to delay or prevent the release of public records to the public?

Can I also expect a discount on the $285 you are trying to charge me for a single email showing the names of the members of the administrative union bargaining team? Are you also willing to haggle over the $535 you are trying to charge for a single month of invoices showing how much public money UO is paying HLGR to negotiate, slowly, with the faculty union?

What will it take to make you see the light on this issue, and realize that your office's continued and persistent efforts to frustrate the release of public records are, in the end, far more damaging to UO than anything that is likely to be found in these documents?

Thanks for your help with these questions,

Bill Harbaugh

UO Prof of Economics

On MondayMay 20, 2013, at 6:07 PM, "Office of Public Records" <pubrec@uoregon.edu> wrote:

5/20/2013

Dear Mr. Harbaugh-

The estimate I sent you on 5/16 in response to your request for an update on your request for “all records generated or received by University of Oregon employee Betsy Boyd and UO President Gottfredson regarding proposed or draft legislation that would create a University of Oregon governing board or otherwise change the relationship between the UO and state government. The time period for the request is Nov. 1, 2012 to the present”, was unclear.

I would like to clarify that while the actual cost of responding to your request is $1065.29, the office has agreed to provide a fee reduction of 40%. Accordingly, the new estimate for your request is $639.18. Upon receipt of a check made payable to the University of Oregon in this amount, the office will proceed to locate, copy and provide the records you have requested that are not exempt from disclosure....

Lisa Thornton

Public Records Officer

University of Oregon

Office of the President

Duck coaches pocket parking payola

2013-05-20T14:50:00.000-07:00

5/20/2013: They are making UO parking operations pay nearly $1M a year towards the bonds for the underground Matt Court Arena parking garage - meaning the cost gets tacked on to the fees every UO parking pass holder must pay. And then they earn $370K a year, presumably from game parking, and spend it on themselves:

Everybody gets a car!

No subsidies here. Move it along, professor.

UA update: VP Kimberly Espy applies for Alabama provost job.

2013-05-20T14:37:00.000-07:00

5/20/2013 update: Word from the UO Matters branch office in Tuscaloosa is that the Espy is still a live contender for the UA Provost job.

5/14/2013 update: Disappointment all around as UAB hires Robert Palazzo, not Kimberly Espy, as CAS Dean. No word on UA Provost search. Also no word from the Senate Administration joint review of RIGE. The written report to the Senate is due tomorrow.

4/18/2013 update: Also a finalist for UAB Dean of CAS - on campus today. Thanks again, Anon. Dr. Espy has learned a lot from her experiences at UO, and would make an excellent Dean. Maybe they need a General Counsel too?

4/8/2013: Thanks to an alert reader for the link:

Tuscaloosa, AL - Interviews will happen during the month of April 2013 to pick the next University of Alabama Provost. ...

* Dr. Kimberly Espy, vice president for Research & Innovation, dean of the Graduate School, The University of Oregon – April 30, Heritage Room, Ferguson Center

Dr. Espy has been a highly effective VP for Research and Innovation here at UO. She helped overcome serious financial problems facing UO's research program by developing innovative funding strategies for science start-up packages. We also note her efforts to foster harmony with key PI's in psychology and biology, as well as in the humanities. Her work developing UO's systems neuroscience program has been particularly effective, as was her key role in the funding, construction, and allocation of research space in UO's new Lewis Integrated Science Building.

We wish her the best in her job search, and we of course welcome helpful comments about her valuable service to UO.

Greg Rikhoff takes over as Gottfredson's Chief of Staff

2013-05-20T08:01:00.002-07:00

5/20/2013: Tim Black will move to development. Rikhoff has been Director of Community Relations for the last few years. In other rumors Andrew Marcus will move from CAS Soc Sci Dean to Interim CAS Dean while Coltrane serves as Interim Provost. Still ~~no rumors~~ nothing solid on who will replace Randy Geller and Doug Park, or when.

UO Board legislation FAQ

2013-05-19T17:55:00.000-07:00

Resources and news regarding the 2013 legislation to create a UO Board of Trustees.

Work in progress, suggestions welcome. Created 5/17/2013. Last updated 5/21/2013:

Hot topics:

Open letters from Frank Stahl, the Deans, and the union on SB270 are posted at the bottom.

The next (last?) public hearing on SB270 is scheduled for Th 5/23, 8:30 AM

The UO faculty union has sent out a message excoriating President Gottfredson for his "asked and answered" monologue on shared governance, and for his plan to gut it, which he will not publicly acknowledge:

To date, faculty who have expressed concern over the future of shared governance at UO have been publicly dismissed by President Gottfredson, and rebuffed at the union negotiating table. For example, when approximately 100 faculty and staff gathered this past Tuesday, May 14 for an opportunity to hear from President Gottfredson on the status of institutional board legislation, he shocked and dismayed many faculty with his lack of respect for preserving shared governance in relation to independent boards and our faculty union contract. At the negotiating table, President Gottfredson’s chief spokesperson has admitted that the UO constitution itself is not enforceable, and could be overturned by a new independent governing board.

The current PSU faculty union contract includes strong shared governance provisions. Their Faculty Senate Constitution gets legal status:

Article 12, Section 2. Notwithstanding the exclusive right of the association to negotiate and reach agreement on terms and conditions of employment, recognized in Article 1 (RECOGNITION), and the right of the University to carry out its ordinary and customary functions of management, recognized in Article 5 (RESERVED RIGHTS OF THE UNIVERSITY), the parties agree that it is mutually desirable that the collegial system of shared governance be maintained and strengthened so that faculty will have a mechanism and procedures, independent of collective bargaining, for appropriate participation in the governance of the University. To that effect, the Portland State University Faculty Constitution shall remain in existence for the duration of this Agreement subject to the provisions of Oregon University System IMD 1.120 through 1.126.

But their administration is trying to remove shared governance from the contract too. I wonder if PSU has hired Sharon Rudnick as a consultant? From the PSU AAUP site:

Take-away: The big take-away, from the perspective of our team, is that the administration would like to move much of our current contract language around issues of faculty governance from the contract into the Faculty Senate's realm (an important advisory board to the Administration). We fear that ultimately, the Administration wants governance to be “shared” disproportionately, leaving faculty fewer rights and privileges. The removal of these powers from the contract would mean significant changes in long standing evaluation procedures and would erode or remove current safeguards around process (removal from the contract means procedural violations could no longer be grieved).

SB270: Creates independent boards for UO and PSU, allows OSU and others to follow if they can show support among their university communities. There is no requirement for such support from the UO community.

Legislative info: https://olis.leg.state.or.us/liz/2013R1/Measures/Exhibits/SB270
Current draft (#5): https://olis.leg.state.or.us/liz/2013R1/Downloads/CommitteeMeetingDocument/19825
President Gottfredson's info page on governance changes.
President Gottfredson's efforts to charge the Register Guard $1065 to see emails from himself and Betsy Boyd on the SB270 negotiations.
The next (last?) public hearing is scheduled for Th 5/23, 8:30 AM

Protections for shared governance in the current draft of SB270? None:

“SECTION 18. The president and professors constitute the faculty and as such have the immediate government and discipline of a university with a governing board and the students therein, except as otherwise provided by law or action of the governing board. The faculty may, subject to the supervision of the governing board and section 8 of this 2013 Act, prescribe the course of study to be pursued in the university and the textbooks to be used.

What do we have currently?

From OUS State Board OARs at http://www.ous.edu/state_board

Page 104. “(7) Each institution is authorized to formulate a statement of internal governance expressed as a constitution or in another appropriate format which will be ratified as the official statement of internal governance by the relevant institutional body or bodies and the institution president. All statements of internal governance will be consistent with statutes governing the Oregon State Board of Higher Education, the Oregon University System, and any applicable Board rules, policies, or IMD.”

Page 105. “(8) The statement of internal governance is subject to review and amendment when a new institution president assumes office or at other such times provided for in the internal governance statement. Any amendment to the statement of internal governance will be subject to ratification by the relevant institutional body or bodies and the institution president.”

That is what we stand to lose with a UO board, unless a policy specifically protecting existing Constitutions is incorporated in the legislation that creates such boards, or into the faculty union CBA.

Board member qualifications: OHSU / UO comparison. OHSU went independent in 1995 and Kitzhaber views them as the model. Their legislation is here: http://www.leg.state.or.us/ors/353.html There are a few differences between their legislation and the current draft for UO and PSU. One difference? The OHSU legislation requires that the Governor's appointees actually have some experience or expertise:

(b) Seven representatives who, in the discretion of the Governor, have experience in areas related to the university missions or that are important to the success of Oregon Health and Science University, including but not limited to higher education, health care, scientific research, engineering and technology and economic and business development.

The proposed UO legislation? The governor can appoint anyone he/she wants to the UO Board of Trustees. No higher ed experience required. Pat Kilkenny, anyone?

Faculty/student/ staff representation? The original bill included 2 voting faculty members and a student. One recent revision had a non-voting student but specifically banned faculty or other employees. The current draft includes the UO president, a student, and a faculty member as non-voting members. Student and faculty selected by the governor.

Regarding the UO Board legislation, SB 270:

Frank Stahl sends this:

On May 20, 2013, President Gottfredson asserted, “The University of Oregon Constitution became the operative document for our shared governance system when [it was] ratified by the statutory faculty and signed by my predecessor on December 15, 2011. It is in effect as ratified and will remain so under an institutional board unless it is modified by procedures delineated in the constitution itself.” (http://president.uoregon.edu/content/president-gottfredson’s-comments-shared-governance).

That statement may sound comforting, but it ignores the fact that university governing boards have no obligation to accept presidential advice whereas they are bound by actions of the State Legislature. Hence the way to guarantee the survival of our Constitution, which is in full compliance with State Law as well as IMDs and Policies of the State Board, is to amend SB270 to include Oregon State Board of Higher Education Policies p 104(7) and p105(8). This is the time for President Gottfredson to exercise much needed leadership by inviting the UO Senate to join him in a statement to the State Senate of support for such an amendment.

The Deans send this: My comments in bold [ ]:

Dear Colleagues:

This is an open letter from the Deans to the UO community regarding this historic moment for our university. Legislation aimed at creating a public governing board for the University of Oregon continues to move forward in Salem, and we see this development as the most promising way to address the challenge of shrinking state support for our mission and our institution. Simultaneously we are engaged in creating an historic collective bargaining agreement between the University and a new faculty union, one that will establish guidelines for labor practices for years to come. With this letter we are reaching out to the entire university community to call for a positive, respectful and inclusive debate about the UO’s future. [I'm curious: This has been going on for 8 months. Why did you wait til the last possible minute to reach out to us?]

We believe that a fully informed and constructive dialogue will best serve the future of our institution. We want you to know that we collectively see great potential in the UO's advance toward institutional governance and toward a fair collective bargaining agreement, and have high hopes for the future under the leadership of President Michael Gottfredson.

The legislative process that will determine the future of our governance is at a delicate and critical stage. Establishing a public governing board solely dedicated to the UO, with the ability to generate much-needed investments from outside sources is critical to the future success of the university.

Key legislation now being considered in Salem – SB 270 – is fully congruent with the UO’s commitment to shared governance, as President Gottfredson has affirmed on a number of occasions. [Talk is cheap.] On Monday, the President posted a statement on his website elaborating how his commitment to shared governance will be sustained and honored going forward under a public institutional board. We urge all members of the campus community to review these comments at http://president.uoregon.edu/content/president-gottfredson%E2%80%99s-comments-shared-governance. [Websites are even cheaper.]

The university’s collective commitment to shared governance is exemplified by recent actions. Many members of the Provost’s search committee were nominated by the Senate, members of the elected Senate Budget Committee were key participants in this year’s budget setting process, [This is a sham, Gottfredson should know better, and the Deans shouldn't play along with this nonsense] and the President meets regularly with the elected Faculty Advisory Committee and the elected Undergraduate and Graduate Councils exercise control over development of new curricular proposals. [That's your best evidence of his commitment to shared governance? Not much. Thanks, but we want it in in a contract that someone besides Randy Geller can enforce.]

As Deans, we strongly support the tradition of shared governance at the University of Oregon and acknowledge its vital role in promoting academic excellence. As we move forward we do not think it should be narrowly redefined solely within the context of a collective bargaining agreement. As other institutions of higher learning with faculty and staff unions demonstrate, the commitment of Deans and faculty to shared governance cannot and should not be limited to labor contracts between a union and the university. [Not be limited.... what are they trying to say here? Spit it out: you don't want the constitution to have legal protections in the contract, so that the faculty can't effectively enforce shared governance.] We know all faculty at the UO (both represented and non-represented) share a commitment to academic excellence. Our mission requires that we continue to work together collaboratively to promote the highest possible quality of teaching, learning and research at the University of Oregon.

We are engaged in a major effort to attract and retain the very best faculty and we see the quality of the public discourse among the entire UO community as a key factor in attaining this goal. [Pay us. Why don't the Dean's send out an email supporting the unions efforts to get comparable pay?] In addition, as we prepare to launch a major capital campaign, we hope to engage potential donors and supporters in a positive, constructive and respectful dialogue about the future of the University of Oregon. We need your help in this endeavor because it is truly a shared vision that depends on our collective efforts. [So why did you wait til the last minute to try and enlist our support, when we had little possibility of influencing the actual legislation?]

The bottom line: We urge the UO community to come together so that we can build one of the strongest and most creative research universities in the nation. We trust [Thanks. Bit late for trust us stuff] that you will join President Gottfredson and us in promoting this noble and exciting endeavor by working together as we move forward. We value your commitment to excellence and believe that the future of the university is dependent on the strength of the entire UO community.

Frances Bronet, Dean

School of Architecture & Allied Arts

Michael Bullis, Dean

Sommerville-Knight Professor

College of Education

Deborah Carver

Philip H. Knight Dean of Libraries

Scott Coltrane

Tykeson Dean of Arts & Sciences

College of Arts & Sciences

Kimberly Andrews Espy, Dean

Graduate School, Vice President for Research & Innovation

Brad Foley, Dean

School of Music & Dance

David Frank, Dean

Robert D. Clark Honors College

Tim Gleason

Edwin L. Artzt Dean & Professor

School of Journalism & Communication

Cornelis A “Kees” de Kluyver, Dean

Rippey Distinguished Professor

Charles H. Lundquist College of Business

Michael Moffitt

Philip H. Knight Dean

School of Law

The UO Faculty Union sends this:

Shared governance remains front and center this week. On Thursday, the Oregon House Ways and Means Committee will hold a public hearing on Independent Institutional Board legislation. On Tuesday and Thursday, our faculty negotiating team will be back at the bargaining table with the Administration’s representatives. In both arenas, United Academics will continue to press the case to protect and preserve shared governance at UO.

BARGAINING

Bargaining will take place Tuesday and Thursday, 8am-12pm in 122 Knight Library. Negotiations are open to everyone. Please make time to attend negotiations and support your faculty negotiators!

LEGSILATIVE ACTION

Senate Bill 270 and House Bill 3120 – the twin pieces of legislation that outline future possibilities for independent institutional boards at UO, OSU, and PSU – are up for a public hearing in the Oregon House Ways and Means Committee’s Subcommittee on Education this Thursday (5/23) at 8:30am in the Capitol, Room HR F. United Academics strongly believes faculty, staff and students should have representation and voting rights on any future independent board. As currently worded, pending legislation does not guarantee representation nor voting rights for faculty, staff, nor students.

If you’re able to attend, click here to let us know and learn more about carpool opportunities.

If you’re not able to attend in person, you can make sure that President Gottfredson, Governor Kitzhaber, and our elected representatives know that faculty at UO care about shared governance: CLICK HERE to send your message in support of shared governance now!

HB3120: Expands authority and membership of Higher Education Coordinating Commission (HECC). Transfers State Board of Education (SBE) authority for community colleges to HECC. Abolishes Oregon Student Access Commission and transfers policy-making authority to HECC and administrative authority to newly created Office of Student Access and Completion.

Legislative info: https://olis.leg.state.or.us/liz/2013R1/Measures/Overview/HB3120

New Partnership History:

Brent Walth's lengthy interview piece with President Lariviere on the genesis of the "New Partnership", from the Oregon Quarterly in 2010.
Phil Knight and Pat Kilkenny's "Oregonians for Higher Ed Excellence PAC". Still sitting on $450K, to get SB270 through the legislature.
Docs on faculty opposition to a board w/o faculty representation, from the IFS and PSU.
Irene Gerlingher, first woman to serve as a UO Regent, on the strange things that political boards do.
UO Senate resolution in support of the New Partnership from 2010. Never voted on, from what I can tell.
The UO Statutory Faculty meets in Mac court in November 2011, and unanimously approves establishment of a committee to work with the administration on independent board legislation. From what I can tell this committee was never appointed.

PAC-12 boss jock gets $3M to "drive the academic mission"

2013-05-19T15:25:00.004-07:00

5/19/2013: You can't make this shit up. Rachel Bachman has the story in the WSJ on PAC-12 commissioner Larry Scott's earnings:

Scott took home a $1,376,000 bonus in addition to a base salary of $1,575,000 and other compensation of $71,462. ... Scott said that owning its networks helps the Pac-12 "drive the academic mission in terms of promoting a broad array of Olympic sports, promoting campus content and promoting the brands of our universities in ways that would not be possible in my view if someone else is controlling your network."

The players still get paid nothing, UO's students are still paying millions in hidden subsidies, and the whole thing is subsidized by billions - well, at least a few billions - of state and federal tax-deductions. Here's the illustrated version of the sorry state of public finance in our country:

And then there's the UO Foundation, which does the money laundering for the Ducks - all to support UO's tax deductible academic mission, of course. These are donations for current operations. CEO Paul Weinhold won't release the breakdown for capital gifts and endowments.

Moffitt piles on more reserves, still not enough for raises.

2013-05-19T12:10:00.002-07:00

5/19/13: From http://ous.edu/state_board/meeting/dockets, the March 31 Quarterly Management Report. Free UO Matters coffee cup to UO Controller Kelly Wolf if he will explain the extra $99M in income that popped up this year. Anyway, it looks like reserves were up again last quarter.

In March Moffitt walked out on the faculty bargaining team when they asked her about UO's reserves, 15.8% at the time. She stalled and came back a few weeks later, saying that was if anything too low - even though OUS's recommended upper limit is 15%. For a comparison, OSU's reserves are 8.4%. That means UO has about $63M more than OSU squirreled away for a rainy day.

I've met OSU's former VPFA Mark McCambridge, who just retired. He struck me as a fairly prudent fellow. (And, in contrast to Moffitt, a strong believer in transparency.) Yet Moffitt says UO can't can't afford an extra $12M to fund the difference between the admin and union raises proposals? Hmm.

2012:

http://www.ous.edu/sites/default/files/state_board/meeting/dockets/ddoc120511-FA.pdf

The good news: When UO has its own board, VPFA Moffitt will no longer have to make excuses to the state. The bad news: When UO has its own board there will be no way for the faculty to find out what's going on with the UO budget, except with public records requests which Moffitt will respond to like this:

Robin Holmes review presentation

2013-05-19T11:52:00.002-07:00

5/19/2013: As part of Robin Holmes's 5-year Administrative review, she will be giving a campus-wide presentation Wednesday, May 29 from 3:30 to 5 p.m. in the Gerlinger Lounge. Presumably she'll be taking questions, maybe even answering them.

Senate Election Ballot

2013-05-17T13:37:00.000-07:00

5/11/2013: Senate Elections - log in to Duckweb to vote. Elections close Friday May 17.

Given the developing disaster over Gottfredson's refusal to engage with the faculty about shared governance, this election will be pretty important. Get your votes in. Candidate list below:

University Senate - Social Sciences
(vote for no more than 3)
Bruce McGough (Economics)
John Davidson (Political Science)
Xiaobo Su (Geography)
Jane Cramer (Political Science)

Faculty Advisory Council
College of Arts and Sciences (vote for no more than 3)
Randy Sullivan (Chemistry)
Miriam Deutsch (Physics)
Jeffrey Measelle (Psychology)
Hal Sadofsky (Mathematics)

Professional Schools (vote for no more than 3)
Alexandre Dossin (Music & Dance)
Lynn Kahle (Business)
Merle Weiner (Law)
Fritz Gearhart (Music & Dance)

Officers of Administration (vote for no more than 1)
Annie Clark (University Housing)
Roger Adkins (International Affairs)
Helen Chu (UO Libraries, Director of Academic Technology)
Andrew Verner (Lundquist College of Business)
Terrie Minner-Engle (Academic Advising)
Bill Sherman (Economics)
Lara Nesselroad (UO Libraries)

Faculty Personnel Committee
College of Arts and Sciences (vote for no more than 2)
Li-Shan Chou (Human Physiology)
Jeffrey Measelle (Psychology)
Bruce McGough (Economics)
Nicholas Proudfoot (Mathematics)

Graduate Council
College of Arts and Sciences Natural Sciences (vote for no more than 2)
Li-Shan Chou (Human Physiology)
Sara Hodges (Psychology)
Weiyong He (Mathematics)

Professional Schools (vote for no more than 1)
Alexandre Dossin (Music & Dance)

Faculty Grievance Appeal Committee
(vote for no more than 1)
Cynthia Vakareliyska (Linguistics)

Intercollegiate Athletics Committee
College of Arts and Sciences (vote for no more than 3)
Matthias Vogel (German & Scandinavian)
Michael Price (Mathematics)
Jeffrey Measelle (Psychology)
Bill Harbaugh (Economics)
Glen Waddell (Economics)
Jennifer Freyd (Psychology)

Professional Schools (vote for no more than 2)
Chuck Kalnbach (Business)
Jennifer Ellis (Finance)
Laura Leete (AAA - PPPM)

Classified Staff (vote for no more than 1)
Kurt Krueger (Printing and Mailing Services)
Lisa Wimberely (Unclassified Personnel Services)
Jimmy Murray (UO Libraries)
Richelle Chambers Krotts (Education Studies)
Eddie B. Reynolds (Campus Operations)
Nicholas Ligett (UO Libraries)
Jeremy Doucette-Hardy (CAS)

CAS Dean's Advisory Committee
Social Science (vote for no more than 2)
Philip Scher (Anthropology)		180
Anne van den Nouweland (Economics)		181

Humanities (vote for no more than 1)
Forest Pyle (English)		184

Pernsteiner is still voting illegally in Lane County?

2013-05-17T11:11:00.003-07:00

5/17/2013: It sure looks that way to me, and Lane County Registrar Cheryl Betschart has asked him for an explanation. You remember Pernsteiner, right?

Last time I asked this question Pernsteiner had his lawyer, Bill Gary of HLGR, send this response to the registrar, claiming Pernsteiner intended to return to Lane County and make it his permanent residence:

Sure he plans to return. I like that "we respectfully request that this information be held in confidence" part. Nice try, Mr. Gary. Of course, lying to the Registrar about this sort of thing is a felony:

Let's see if that law has any teeth:

From: BETSCHART Cheryl L <Cheryl.BETSCHART@co.lane.or.us>

Subject: RE: investigation of George Pernsteiner voting residence

Date: May 13, 2013 10:06:17 AM PDT

To: 'Bill Harbaugh' <wtharbaugh@gmail.com>

Mr. Harbaugh,

A registration inquiry letter pursuant to ORS 247.195(1) has been sent to Mr. Pernsteiner. A response is requested no later than June 3, 2013. Thank you.

Cheryl Betschart

Lane County Clerk

275 W. 10^th Avenue, Eugene OR 97401

(541) 682-4328 – Fax (541) 682-2303

cheryl.betschart@co.lane.or.us

Begin forwarded message:

From: Bill Harbaugh <wtharbaugh@gmail.com>

Subject: Re: investigation of George Pernsteiner voting residence

Date: May 6, 2013 8:02:48 AM PDT

To: BETSCHART Cheryl L <Cheryl.BETSCHART@co.lane.or.us>

Dear Ms Betschart -

You asked me a few months ago for additional information regarding my claim that George Pernsteiner was illegally registered to vote in Lane County.

According to the official SOS voter registration website, Mr. Pernsteiner was registered to vote at the OUS Chancellor's residence in Eugene, and was mailed a ballot on 5/3/2013:

However, according to his OUS separation contract Mr. Pernsteiner was to vacate that official residence as of May 1 2013, perhaps with a slight extension due to use of his accrued vacation time:

The attached letter from Bill Gary, Mr. Pernsteiner's attorney, sent to you in 2011, says that "... his primary residence and the place to which he intends to return is his ofﬁcial residence in Eugene."

Mr. Gary's claim was not very likely when he originally made it, given that Mr. Pernsteiner owns a home of his own in Portland and that, by agreement with the state and the donors, the Treetops house can only be used by the OUS Chancellor or the UO President. Furthermore, given the clear language in Mr. Pernsteiner's separation contract, it cannot possibly be true at this point.

Therefore this is a request that you

a) contact Mr. Gary regarding his claim about his client's primary residence and his intention to return to it, asking him specifically when that claim no longer was true, and then

b) pursue appropriate legal action against Mr. Pernsteiner.

Thanks for your help,

Bill Harbaugh

From: Bill Harbaugh [mailto:wtharbaugh@gmail.com]

Sent: Monday, February 25, 2013 7:39 AM

To: BETSCHART Cheryl L

Subject: Re: investigation of George Pernsteiner voting residence

Hi Ms Betschart,

You asked if I had any additional evidence on, there is a news story here http://registerguard.com/web/updates/29482770-55/chancellor-state-oregon-property-treetops.html.csp

which reiterates the fact he is leaving. My understanding is that he will be working full time at PSU in Portland after 3/31. I'm not sure what else you need to establish the fact that he is not going to return to live in Eugene.

Meanwhile, I'd appreciate it if you would send me copies of the public records you used in making this decision. I ask for a fee waiver on the grounds of public interest, as demonstrated by the many news stories and editorials about Treetops and the status of the Chancellor's residence in Eugene.

Thanks,

Bill Harbaugh

Legislative meeting update: Faculty endorses independent UO Board legislation

2013-05-16T19:38:00.001-07:00

5/17/3013 Update:

The Ways and Means subcommittee meeting is scheduled for 8:30 AM, Salem, Thursday the 23rd. One last chance to let your legislators know how you feel about this power grab.

5/16/2013:

Whoops, the video of President Kyr and Peter Keyes, and the resolution below, are from November 2011, at the meeting of the Statutory Faculty in Mac Court, protesting the Lariviere firing.

I believed I was endorsing legislation for a board that would including voting faculty and that would put the UO constitution on a firm legal footing.

Now the legislation has been written by President Gottfredson, Randy Geller, and their unknown advisers and lobbyists. There's been little to no faculty input. Unless you count Gottfredson's "asked and answered" fiasco on Tuesday.

The Oregon legislature will probably vote on this within weeks. Does the faculty support it in its current form, which includes no voting faculty members, and no guarantees for shared governance? Who knows - we've never been asked.

SFA 11/12-02 Motion for the Establishment of a UO Board of Trustees

SFA 11/12-02: Motion for the Establishment of a UO Board of Trustees, Senate Executive Committee presented by Professor Peter Keyes, Architecture

The UO Faculty Assembly directs the Senate Executive Committee, or an ad hoc Senate Committee to be appointed by the Senate President, to initiate negotiations with State Legislative leaders and the Oregon State Board of Higher Education, leading to the appointment of a University of Oregon Board of Trustees.

The scope of issues to be engaged in the discussion of the powers of this board shall include, but shall not be limited to:

1. The composition and appointment process of the Board

2. Operational oversight of the University

3. Setting of tuition and fees

4. Budgetary control

5. Contract negotiations and contract authority

6. Bonding authority

7. Acquisition of property

8. Status of legal counsel

9. Construction buildings

10. Authority over the hiring and firing of president of UO.

11. Hiring and personnel policies for faculty and staff

Galvan to explain Gabon

2013-05-16T09:10:00.001-07:00

5/16/2013: Dear colleagues:

I invite you to a presentation by Dr. Dennis Galvan, who is a finalist for the position of Vice Provost for International Affairs. Dr. Galvan's application materials (letter and cv) will be available for your review on Monday, May 20, at http://provost.uoregon.edu/content/vice-provost-international-affairs-finalists. He will give his public presentation on Thursday, May 23, from 3:30-5:00 in the Oak Room at the EMU. A survey for providing feedback to the Provost on this candidate will also be available at the link mentioned above. Please join me and the search committee at this important event.

Yours,
Barbara Altmann
Vice Provost for Academic Affairs

Are Rudnick and HLGR also writing the UO Board legislation?

2013-05-16T08:39:00.000-07:00

5/16/2013: Presumably Randy Geller is getting competent legal advice somewhere. Frohnmayer wrote the original version. And if it's HLGR it would help explain Rudnick's bargaining table outbursts about keeping shared governance out of the contract. HLGR wrote the Nike tax relief bill that Kitzhaber pushed through in special session, so they've got Phil Knight's trust. The legislative site on the bill is here. I'll do some more digging, if anyone knows anything please pass it along. Meanwhile the UO Senate will hold a vote of no confidence in Mr. Geller this fall. More on that soon.

Union saves chicken-killing professor's job

2013-05-16T08:34:00.004-07:00

Insidehighered, here. 5/16/2013.

Great ledes in the ODE

2013-05-15T20:06:00.001-07:00

Tuesday’s fire in the Hamilton Complex’s Dunn Hall was an accident caused by mop heads catching on fire, investigators have confirmed. 5/15/2013.

President Gottfredson's first talk with UO faculty goes very badly.

2013-05-14T13:26:00.000-07:00

5/14/2013: 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.

For the white-bread, comment free take on the meeting, check out "Around the 0":

During an informal meeting in Gerlinger Alumni Lounge, the president provided an update and answered questions regarding two bills in the Oregon Legislature that would reorganize higher education governance and create boards for the UO and other public universities in Oregon that request them.

After Gottfredson unloaded on the staff representative who asked a direct question in the Senate last week, Dave Hubin made a special effort to seek him out and apologize. Sounds like Dave has his work cut out for him. The problem in a nutshell? It's all about who you look up too:

Thanks to five UO Matters stringers for the notes which I've combined below. You know who you are, and if you need a letter from me to your dept head about your service contributions for the upcoming 2% merit raises, our first since 2006, just ask.

Minutes:

3:56: Twenty folks present.
3:57: Hubin and President Gottfredson arrive.
4:09. Now up to about 120 people.
4:13: Welcome from Hubin.

4:14: Gottfredson takes the stage and introduces his team, which includes Geller, Moffitt, Bean and ?.

Pres expounds on the history of the UO and the State system, saying UO is a Land-Grant College. Nope, that would be OSU, Mr. President. "Watershed moment, momentous." Repeat 3x and click your heels. Then tells of reduced State support (projected to be 5% next year). This, unlike the Land Grant origin of the UO, was probably not news to anyone there.

Then some REAL news: UO is one of the world’s great public research universities! However, I think that was believed about as much as the land grant origin of UO. (Too bad, because the UO showed some real promise for a while.)

Leads us through his 2-page hand out on the Local Board. Emphasized that, in every respect, The University would gain from the change. Of course Gottfredson's definition of The University is a little narrower than what the philosophes had in mind.

4:52: Gottfredson finally closes his canned remarks, and invites questions from the floor.

First off was a Q from Jane Cramer (PoliSci). MG interrupted her polite lead-in and didn't even allow her to frame her question (which was clearly about the CBA, but he cut her off before she should mention the CBA). He then refused to go back to her for a follow up, calling on Frank Stahl (DNA) instead. That was a mistake:

“Mike, we are cheered by your avowed support for shared governance. As you must be aware, shared governance works only when there is a document defining the procedures by which agreements can be reached and disagreements settled. The UO Constitution is such a document. It currently enjoys the protection of State Board policy requiring that any changes in it be ratified by the relevant parties (i.e., the President and the Statutory Faculty). What steps will you take to ensure that the same protection of our existing Constitution be provided by a local Board, should the University get one?”

MG's response: Go home Frank. Stahl then descended to our President's level and a shouting match ensued. Bottom line: the UO Constitution is dead if Gottfredson has his way. Frank was of course out of line. That's why we pay him the big emeritus bucks. But MG managed to be worse. Stupid.

Michael Dreiling then raised the Constitution issue in the context of the Union/Administration CBA. Gottfredson's response: Issues of governance have no place in the CBA, period. Ignoring the CBAs of several other universities.

Margie Paris asked a softball question, but MG didn't do much with that gift.

From the floor, apparently an SEIU member: Why no classified staff member on the Board? In response, MG didn't even make eye contact with the questioner, but pointed looked the exact opposite direction in the room while he dissed his question. MG then droned on about how important it was to have faculty and student representation. Since this was not an answer to the question, the guy pressed: and got anodyne stuff (yeah, me too, google it) about how it's important not to have "designated membership" or some such jargony phrase; this was presumed to mean that we don't want to stipulate one of X, one of Y, one of Z all the way across (Best to leave it to the Guv.)

But the result there too was to totally ignore the actual question about classified staff representation. And the SEIU guy was very clearly asking for Gottfredson's rationale for not having one, which these non-answers did even gesture toward. The result was so insulting that there was a little mutiny of hands up and murmuring from across the room among those who were clearly classified staff. (My father's advice when I got hired at UO: Always respect the staff, never teach in the summer, and don't trust those bastards in the central administration. Three out of three, Dad.)

All in all, with both classified staff and faculty, MG clearly had no notion that his audience was people who work here, know one or two things about our "land-grant" status and the Morrill Act, state funding levels and the like. And he was both unprepared to answer questions and too thin-skinned to try being honest on the fly.

5:20: Most of the faculty has fled. Maybe 10% of the original crowd stays for the traditional post conversation brown-nosing with the man who can double your salary. Mike "The University" Gottfredson, Jim "Big Five" Bean, and Dave Hubin, plus two or three faculty, or maybe food-service. BTW, the food was a bust too. No disrespect to UO food service staff, but I imagine the Football Operations Sous Chef puts out a better and significantly more expensive spread whenever Gottfredson shows up there.

5:22: Your Reporters split.

My question to President Gottfredson:

From: Bill Harbaugh

Subject: Question about UO Board legislation

Date: May 13, 2013 12:01:05 PM PDT
To: President Gottfredson
Cc: David Hubin , Randy Geller , doug park , Kron Michael Michael C , rep.bettykomp@state.or.us, sen.rodmonroe@state.or.us, Robert Kyr , Margie Paris

Dear President Gottfredson:
I have a question regarding the proposed independent board legislation, which I hope you will answer by email - I'll be unable to attend the governance meeting in Gerlingher tomorrow.

What I think is the latest draft of the legislation, at https://olis.leg.state.or.us/liz/2013R1/Downloads/CommitteeMeetingDocument/19825, says:

“SECTION 2a. A university with a governing board is a governmental entity performing governmental functions and exercising governmental powers. A university with a governing board is not
considered a unit of local or municipal government or a state agency,
board, commission or institution for purposes of state statutes or
constitutional provisions. ...

I am wondering if this legislation will affect UO's obligations under the public records and meetings law, if the UO Board will also be subject to these laws, and if the responsibility for handling appeals of Public Records denials from UO or the board will shift from the Lane County DA to the State DOJ or to another office.

Thank you,
Bill Harbaugh
UO Prof. of Economics

No response yet. Call me naive, but I'm finally beginning to get a little suspicious abut President Gottfredson's intentions.

5/13/2013: Gottfredson's compensation is ~10% above comparators:

We all know UO faculty salaries are bad. Check here to see how far you are behind your peers. But the UO salary news isn't grim for everyone. The Chronicle just reported salaries for 212 presidents and chancellors at public research universities, for 2011. The median total compensation (includes deferred) is $400,000. President Gottfredson's contract is here. His starting pay was $440K, plus $100K deferred, plus ORP at about $63K, plus $14.4K for a car, plus use of McMorran house or Treetops, worth say $36K - below market, but he's gotta use it for entertaining too. So, including ORP his total comp is about $653K. Leaving out the house and car, it's $603K.

Average compensation at our AAU comparators is $612K. Of course that includes many presidents with years on the job. If you leave out IU and Michigan, where the presidents run entire systems, the average is $553K.

Hide the minutes update on Dave Hubin's PRAAG

2013-05-14T11:10:00.000-07:00

5/14/2013 update: I've been trying to get a copy of the minutes that Dave Hubin had taken at this meeting of the Public Records Administrative Advisory Group that he and Pres Gottfredson set up to bypass the Senate and subvert shared governance. See below. Ironically, he had the minutes taken because he wanted to persuade me to stop live-blogging - he didn't even tell me about the first meeting. Nice try. After a month of evasions from Hubin, I made a public records request:

On Monday Apr 29, 2013, at 6:33 PM, Bill Harbaugh wrote:

Hi Lisa,

This is a public records request for a copy of the original raw draft of the minutes of the 3/7/2013 AAG on Public records, as taken down during the meeting. I've been trying to get these from Dave Hubin for a month, without success.

I ask for a fee waiver on the basis of the public interest in avoiding the absurdity of charging people to see the minutes of a meeting about charging people to see public records.

Thanks,
Bill Harbaugh
UO Prof of Economics

2 weeks, and still no response. If I don't get them by tomorrow, I'll petition the DA.

3/7/2013: Live-blog: Usual disclaimer, this is what I think people said or meant to say or should have said. Turns out I was misinformed about refreshments, sorry Dash.

Synopsis: Randy Geller has PRO Lisa Thornton scared shitless. Today she revealed she bases her fee waiver decisions on whether or not, in her personal judgement, revealing the documents is in the best interests of Eugene's citizens. But she will not explain her logic for those decisions. Awesome power and responsibility. Even Dave Hubin is getting pissed about the situation. And putative journalism dean Tim Gleason is still using "administrative burden" arguments to justify hiding public records. But John Bonine is on the case, on the side of transparency. I give Geller another two months, tops.

Hubin: There *will* be a written report with recommendations to President Gottfredson, and someone is now taking minutes, besides UO Matters. Dave gives shoutout to the STC for getting the fall 2011 fee-waiver, which Berdahl trashed in April 2012, and which Gottfredson has refused to reinstate, and which UO now uses to delay and frustrate requests, even from student journalists.

Thornton: Complaints were made to the DA about redactions and delays. We then made some de-redactions.

Bonine: Are complaints and ruling on the PRO website? If not why not? Hubin: My legal advice to hide Randy's PR advice comes from Randy, and it's a secret. Harbaugh: So secret Lisa even redacted Randy's name, until the DA called him to the office and told him he had to deredact:

Hubin: This was all prompted by complaint about how we were not justifying fee-waiver denials. I asked Geller, then redacted his opinion because we don't want people to know our public records policies and procedures. I can't say if he told me to do that, because then I'd be breaking attorney-client privilege. Bonine: WTF?

Fee waivers:

Hubin: I believe we are operating within the law, which says "may waive". But the optics are not good.

Thornton: We apply the three-part test on page 20 which gives us broad discretion to delay and frustrate, and we drive a truck through that. Gleason: Explain.

Thornton: I apply my judgement to ask if the citizen's of Eugene would benefit from reading about this. (My god). Q: Do you explain your denials? Thornton: No.

Pinten: Can't you have drop down boxes or something? Thornton: We google the requester to see what they are up to. (My god).

Even Gleason sees this is trouble: "It's problematic to give you this discretion." Bonine: Oregon law was based on federal law, which contrasts public benefit with private benefit. Commercial is out. If it's not just for yourself, it's public benefit. Gleason: Back on his thing about the burden on the institution. Bonine: First test for public interest, then ask if the extent of those benefits exceeds the cost. Thornton: So I'm going to have to do benefit-cost analysis? Can I hire an economist? Bonine: Not only that, I want you to put your decision and reasons on the web. Provides guidance to requestors, reduces your unbounded authority. Thornton: We do have discussions and back and forth with requesters about public interest.

Harbaugh: No, you don't. Thornton: Let me backtrack on my previous statement. Geller has advised me not to explain fee waiver denials. Bonine: WTF? Hubin should go back to Geller and change this.

Bonine: There should not be secret law. It is not appropriate for an agency to hide the reasons for a denial. If explanations harm the university, that's because the university is not behaving well.

Hubin: Is there a consensus that we should give better explanations, and post them? I would have to take that to Geller, and Gottfredson. Bonine: Not appropriate for Geller to hide his opinions - so if we ask this, we want to get his opinion in writing. Hubin: We will write some language for transparency about our denials of fee-waivers for transparency requests.

Recommendation from STC for fee-waiver for student-journalists:

Hubin: STC voted 3-0 for this, with proviso that requests be reasonable. Gleason: What's the definition of student-journalist? Pinten: Pandora's box. Thornton: We use institutionalized media standard. Bonine: Explain those standards and publish them on web? Suppose someone wants the documents to sue UO? Court has ruled that is in the public interest. Gleason: I'm all in favor of fee waivers for student-journalists, I'm just afraid we can't identify student-journalists. Bonine: When they are doing it to disseminate it publicly or just for your own grade in a class? Pintens: The Emerald makes money: Bonine: Journalism is in the public interest. Period. Hubin: Dash, any thoughts? Dash: Use a broad definition, includes blogs, intermittent publications, etc. Brown: Demonstrate ability to generate readership. Flux has readership, even though also for class credit. Hubin: Transparent checklist. Harbaugh: Implement the STC proposal know, instruct Hubin and Gleason to be "reasonable". I think you and Lisa can be reasonable. Thornton: But in the real world public records officers are not reasonable - this would be bad training! Hubin: We will not implement the STC policy now, but we will discuss.

Reading Room:

Harbaugh: Currently, the PRO paid $25,000 for software (plus annual maintenance) that is not as transparent as dropbox and Google. Gleason: Back to his administrative burden mantra. This guy is a Journalism dean?

Thornton tries to demonstrate software. Bonine: Just put this on a website. Gleason: But it helps us track the requests. Harbaugh: Use Excel, it's cheaper.

The End.

3/4/2013: My understanding is that these are public meetings, and that refreshments will be served for all student journalists. Let me know if I got that wrong Dave.

Note that this group is not the Senate Transparency Committee, rather it's the administration's effort to deal with the problems the STC has revealed. I'll try and live-blog it:

TO: Members of the PRAAG

FROM: Dave Hubin

Attached is a proposed agenda for the meeting of the Public Records Administrative Advisory Group that will take place this Thursday, March 7^th at 4:00 in the Johnson Hall Conference Room. Lisa and I look forward to our discussion and your counsel. (I also attached a roster of our membership.)

Dave Hubin

David R. Hubin, Ph.D.

Senior Assistant to the President

University of Oregon

541-346-3036

Agenda:

Public Records Administrative Advisory Group

Agenda for Meeting: March 7, 2013

4:00 p.m. Johnson Hall Conference Room

· Introductions

· Debriefing on two most recent (concluded) appeals to DA’s office

· Discussion regarding “public interest” and “interested public ”

What is the distinction between the two?

How is this distinction used to determine fee waivers?

· Discussion regarding fee waivers for “reasonable” requests from student journalists

Who are student journalists?

Is the current definition of “institutionalized media” fair standard for student journalism?

What is a reasonable request?

· Suggestions for additional materials to add to our Public Records Reading Room

What information would people like to see?

Is there information that your department would like to share?

PRAAG Roster:

Public Records Administrative Advisory Group: 2012-2013

Barbara Altmann, Professor of Romance Languages & Vice Provost for Academic Affairs

Dietrich Belitz, Professor, Physics

John Bonine, Professor, Law

Julie Brown, Senior Director of Communications

Stuart Chin, Assistant Professor, Law, Dean’s designee

Tim Gleason, Professor and Dean, School of Journalism and Communication

Laura Hinman, ASUO President

Dave Hubin, Chair and Convener, Senior Assistant to the President

Renee Irvin, Associate Dean for Finance, AAA; Associate Professor, PPPM

Orca Merwin, Contracts Specialist, Sponsored Projects Services

Jennifer O’Neal, Corrigan Solari University Historian and Archivist, UO Libraries

Allie O’Connor, Contracts Manager, Purchasing and Contracting Services

Craig Pintens, Sr. Assoc. A.D. for Marketing & Public Relations, Athletics

Kim Sheehan, Professor, Journalism & Communication

Greg Stripp, Associate Vice President for Administration, Finance and Administration

Lisa Thornton, Public Records Officer, Office of Public Records

Can diversity survive affirmative action?

2013-05-14T11:01:00.000-07:00

5/14/2013: NYT discussion on the upcoming SCOTUS decision on racial preferences in college admissions, and income targeted alternatives, here.

Football, sexual assaults, and free speech codes

2013-05-14T08:26:00.001-07:00

5/14/2013: Sexual assaults by University of Montana football players lead the DOJ and DOE to require all universities to ban free speech about sex, as harassment. The DOJ report states:

A former University student informed the University that she had not reported being assaulted when she was a student because the person who assaulted her was a football player, football players could get away with whatever they wanted, and everyone would think she was bringing a false report. Several community members, current students, and faculty members similarly indicated that football players are seen as being given undue favoritism and allowed to get away with anything, including sexual assault. For example, some people stated that the University and the community treat football players as if they are “Gods.” From spring 2009 to spring 2012, six football players were accused of aiding, attempting, or committing sexual assault through the University’s complaint procedures. Three of these players were involved in an assault where the University did not initiate SCC proceedings until almost a year after the coach had notice that the victim had filed a report with the Missoula Police Department.

Our government's reaction is astonishing. No, it's not to limit football excesses. That would be un-American. Instead they want to ban free speech. Eugene Volokh has the story on his well regarded law blog:

The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division and the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights is telling universities to institute speech codes. And not just any old speech codes: Under these speech codes, universities would be required to prohibit students from, for instance,

saying “unwelcome” “sexual or dirty jokes”
spreading “unwelcome” “sexual rumors” (without any limitation to false rumors”
engaging in “unwelcome” “circulating or showing e-mails of Web sites of a sexual nature”
engaging in “unwelcome” “display[] or distributi[on of] sexually explicit drawings, picture,s or written materials”
making “unwelcome” sexual invitations.

This is not limited to material that a reasonable person would find offensive. Nor is limited to material that, put together, creates a “hostile, abusive, or offensive educational environment.” (I think even speech codes that would have these requirements are unconstitutional, but the speech codes that the government is urging would in any event not have these requirements.) Every instance of such material of a “sexual nature,” under the government’s approach, would be “sexual harassment” and would need to be banned.

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education has more, here.