President Gottfredson sent the following message by email to faculty, students, and staff:

The University of Oregon’s new governance structure, enacted by the state legislature, becomes effective on July 1, 2014. At that time, the UO will no longer be a part of the Oregon University System (OUS), and will instead be an independent public university with its own governing board, the Board of Trustees of the University of Oregon. This is an important time of transition for the University of Oregon. I am pleased to move forward, in collaboration with our faculty, staff, students, and alumni, into this new chapter of our history.

As part of the orderly transition to our new governance structure, it is advisable to convert all of the existing UO administrative rules (OARs) to UO policies before July 1. If we do not do this conversion, these OARs remain in place, requiring legislative action in order to change. Therefore, I will adopt all these OARs precisely as written to UO policies. That action will give our campus community and the board the flexibility and the time to review carefully each of the policies. To that end, I intend to establish a policy review advisory group to conduct a deliberate and thorough review all of these policies and recommend whether any need to be updated, modified, rescinded, or remain unchanged.

These OARs contain 179 rules in 30 broad categories including rule making, parking, students records, grievances, and fund raising. The OARs can be found here. The proposed UO polices that will be adopted verbatim are here.

I invite public comment on this plan to convert these OARs to UO policies. Input may be provided in person on June 17 at 3:00 p.m. in 150 Columbia Hall; or in writing either to the Office of the President, 1226 University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403-1226 or via email, by noon on June 18. Oregon State University and Portland State University are taking similar actions as they transition to having their own governing boards.

This is the first of several policy actions that are necessary prior to the board assuming governance of the UO on July 1. The UO will provide notification about all policy actions on the Board of Trustees website and on Around the O.