Last updated on 03/12/2014
Post Mortem:
We elected Rob Kyr as Senate President, to start in May. This will be his third term, following a one year break. Let’s face it, UO is in trouble, and anyone who remembers the Faculty Assembly with Pernsteiner knows that Rob Kyr can deal with trouble – in the open:
Otherwise this Senate meeting was an embarrassing disaster. New Senate leadership is badly needed, and fortunately it’s on the way.
3/11/2014: Be there. Say what you will about brutalist architecture, in an earthquake it’s a lot safer than PLC.
Lots of interesting stuff, starting with the announcement of newly elected Senate members of the Senate Budget Committee, and the election of the next Senate President, followed by Academic Freedom Fest, athletics, and somewhere down the list the report on RIGE and research. Why no announcement to the faculty? Because the UO Senate President is not authorized to send email to the UO faculty.
Gottfredson’s out of town, doing his job raising money – I hope it’s not just for athletics. Speaking of which, as IAC chair Rob Illig (Law) is charged with reporting on a long list of substantive matters, and his report was supposed to be posted Monday, but he still hasn’t even sent it to the committee:
a) issues related to student athlete welfare;
b) priorities for the athletics department (and the relation of these priorities to the university mission);
c) the financial status of the athletics department;
d) planned expansion, remodeling or removal of athletics facilities;
e) changes in the status of sports teams;
f) changes in facilities management that might affect the university community;
g) any major violations by the athletics department, and their resolutions;
h) possible roles for faculty governing bodies to assure that academic policies and practices are consistent with supporting the intellectual growth and academic success of student athletes and the viability of athletics as an integral part of campus life;
i) any others topics the athletics director deems relevant to the university community.
Senate Meeting Agenda – March 12, 2014
115 Lawrence, 3:00-5:00 p.m.
3:00 pm 1. Call to Order
3:05 pm 2. Approval of Minutes
February 12, 2014
3:10 pm 3. University Update
3:15 pm 4. New Business
4.1 Senate Vice-President elections
4.2 Motion (Legislation): Curriculum Report, Winter Term 2014; James Imamura, Professor (Physics) and Chair of the Committee on Courses
4.3 Motion (Legislation): UO Senate Approval of IFS Bylaws; Robert Kyr, Professor (Music) & UO Senator
4.4 Motion (Policy Proposal): Updated Environmental Policy; Richard Margerum, Professor (PPPM) & UO Senator
4.5 Motion (Legislation): An End to Subsidies for the UO Athletics Department; William Harbaugh, Professor (Economics) & UO Senator
4.6 Motion (Legislation): Payments by Athletic Department for General Academic Purposes; William Harbaugh, Professor (Economics) & UO Senator
4.7 Motion (Legislation): The Senate Directs the IAC to Report on UO’s Academic Support for Student Athletes; William Harbaugh, Professor (Economics) & UO Senator
4.8 Motion (Policy Proposal): Academic Freedom Policy; Michael Dreiling, Professor (Sociology) & UO Senator
4.9 Motion (Legislation): Senate Liaison to the UO Board of Trustees; Robert Kyr, Professor (Music) & UO Senator
4.10 Motion (Legislation): United Academics Senate Liaison; Robert Kyr, Professor (Music) & UO Senator
4.11 Motion (Legislation): Amending Bylaws Regarding Deadline for Posting Motion Text; Lisa Raleigh, Director of Communications (CAS) & UO Senator
4:15 pm 5. Open Discussion
4:30 pm 6. Reports
6.1 Report on Intercollegiate Athletics Committee; Robert Illig, Professor (Law) and Chair of the Intercollegiate Athletics Committee
6.2 Report on the Coalition on Intercollegiate Athletics (COIA); Nathan Tublitz, Professor (Biology) and COIA Representative
6.3 Report from Tenure Reduction, Retirement, and Emeriti Committee; John Nicols, Professor Emeritus (History) and Chair of the Tenure Reduction, Retirement, and Emeriti Committee
6.4 Report on Senate Budget Committee Elections; Margie Paris, Professor (Law) and UO Senate President
6.5 RIGE Review Report; Margie Paris, Professor (Law) and UO Senate President
6.6 Legal Services Policy Report; Margie Paris, Professor (Law) and UO Senate President
6.7 Other reports available online
4:45 pm 7. Announcements and Communication from the Floor
4:55 pm 8. Other Business
5:00 pm 9. Adjournment
Is there opportunity to question those giving reports? I have some for rob Illig. I can keep it really short, too.
Should there be insufficient time for questions, it’s appropriate to submit them in writing, to be added to the minutes along with the answers.
Is there anything about the University that you admire or like?
We have some very good students, many very good departments, easy to get involved in faculty research, get good jobs after.
As hard as uomatters works on these issues, it’s clear that he sees something worth saving here. I think everyone would agree that there are problems at the University (whether you agree with uomatters on what those problems are, or not). If everyone worked as hard as uomatters to right the wrongs that they see here, I think we’d be heading toward a much brighter future.
Indeed, there are good things about the UO that can be cited and for me, personally, I only see two, strong, historical, and consistent institutional deficiencies:
1) We pay no real attention to evolving our graduate student programs – thus our PHD production rate remains embarrassingly low for a research university (but we can make lots of excuses and rationalization for this) and thus we remain stuck in a legacy disciplinary based graduate education.
2) Since the passage of Measure 5 we always center our “strategy” on the assumption that we have insufficient resources. As a consequence the UO, like the glove of Willie Mays, is “the place where sustained innovation goes to die”
Just my opinion – I am sure others will add to what is likely to
be a growing list.
“Post Mortem” … “Otherwise this Senate meeting was an embarrassing disaster.” Agreed.
When too much business, and important business at that, is crammed into an agenda with a 2 hr. time limit and little discussion time is factored in, how can anyone think this is a reasonable way to run proceedings? When rules are administered and Senators don’t respond accordingly and no hand then rules effectively, we see what we saw. Reports and legislation get pushed back, sometimes until next year, and results for now are wasted time and energy.