Memo to the University Senate, March 12, 2014

President Gottfredson provided the following memo to the University Senate in place of his March update, as both he and the senior vice president and provost are traveling on university business and unable to attend the senate meeting.

DATE:  March 12, 2014
TO:  Members of the University of Oregon Senate
FROM:  Michael Gottfredson, President
SUBJECT:  University Update, March 2014

Neither Provost Scott Coltrane nor I are able to attend today’s University Senate meeting, as we are in California participating in the annual board meeting of the University of Oregon Foundation trustees. While I regret that I cannot do so in person, I’m pleased to provide this update, much of which we will also be sharing with the UO Foundation trustees over the course of their two-day meeting.

It’s fitting, then, for me to begin with a brief update on the foundation itself. The UO Foundation is a source of great strength for our university, providing crucial stability during a period of significant change. The foundation acts as a steward of the university’s investments, and it is doing an outstanding job. Last year, the foundation’s 13.8 percent annualized rate of return placed it in the top 16 percent of university endowments, according to a recent survey of more than 800 endowments by the National Association of College and University Business Officers. Its annual performance ranked second among Pac-12 universities, and on the final day of our last fiscal year, our endowment reached an all-time market high of $533 million.

Growing that endowment further—substantially so—is a central priority for the university’s fundraising efforts as we move ever closer to the public phase of a strategic capital campaign. As we speak with advocates for and supporters of the university, they continue to be shocked by the magnitude of the state’s withdrawal of funding for the university in recent years. Since 2008, state support for our operating budget has declined by $30 million annually—approximately the amount of the combined budgets of the School of Journalism and Communications and the School of Allied Arts and Architecture.

While the state’s withdrawal of funding for Oregon’s public universities has been precipitous, it remains an important source of operating revenue, and we will continue to remind the state of its obligation to support higher education for Oregonians. We were pleased overall with the outcome of the legislative session that came to a close last week. The legislature appropriated $2.1 million in capital construction funds to repair one of two campus utility tunnels under Franklin Boulevard, and although we were not able to secure the funds we requested for the renovation of Chapman Hall, I believe we made significant progress in helping legislators understand the value of the project and the need to invest in deferred maintenance on our campus. Importantly, the session saw no rollbacks or restrictions on the authorities that were granted to the UO Board of Trustees by SB 270 last year. In Salem, we supported the regional universities in their quest to gain independent governing boards, and I urged legislators to support the $200 million state match to the Knight Cancer Challenge at OHSU, which I strongly believe is an outstanding investment in the future of our state.

Federal funding, as grants earned by faculty and aid to students, is another important source of support for the university. The Obama Administration’s FY15 budget request to Congress, released last week, offers slight increases that do not cover inflation for many research and education programs of interest to the research university community. The request also reflects a slight decline in funding for basic research across the government. This is disappointing. Less disappointing is the President’s call to increase the Pell grant by $100 for full awards. This year, more than 4,500 UO students, including 37.8 percent of undergraduates, are receiving a total of $23.3 million in Pell funding.

Our new Board of Trustees will next meet on March 27 and 28, as trustees prepare to assume their full authorities on July 1. That milestone does not mark the end of a process, but the beginning. This shift in governance structure gives the University of Oregon the opportunity to claim our position as the premier public residential research university in the United States. Reaching our full potential will take hard work, strategic initiative, and incredible resources. And it will take a new approach to how we do some things.

We have opportunities now that we didn’t a year ago:

  • We remain a public institution. But we are no longer a state agency. We have more flexibility to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of our operations.
  • We can set our own tuition and fees. This is important, because we need to be able to adjust tuition—particularly for nonresident students—in a way that will support our mission and our Oregon students when the state is not doing so.
  • We can borrow money. This enables us to build infrastructure, and to grow as we need to, taking advantage of opportune timing.
  • We can create efficiencies, unhampered by a system that was not designed for agility, speed, or flexibility—things that are critical to being competitive.

In anticipation of this opportunity, we have gathered information, benchmarked ourselves against the best, and are now in the process of reviewing our campus’s academic priorities. Many of you have participated in the academic planning sessions led by Senior Vice President and Provost—no longer interim, I’m delighted to say—Scott Coltrane. The most recent session, a couple of weeks ago, focused on the proposed faculty “cluster of excellence” hiring initiative. The provost requested feedback on the process that will enable groups of faculty to propose areas that, with the addition of two to five key faculty members, could raise already strong programs to the level of the best in the country or the world. I encourage you to participate in these ongoing discussions in person (a second discussion on the cluster of excellence initiative is scheduled for March 18 at 1:00 in Gerlinger Lounge) and via the comment form available on the Provost’s academic planning website.

There are a couple of other topics on which I’d like to share brief updates:

Discussions have continued with the Senate’s Academic Freedom Work Group on a proposed policy on academic freedom. Last week my office offered two options for the group’s consideration: one which would extend to all faculty the academic freedom policy that currently applies to bargaining-unit faculty under Article 5 of the Collective Bargaining Agreement; another a version of the policy as proposed by the Senate Work Group. I remain absolutely committed to reaching agreement on this important issue, and will continue working with the committee until that is achieved.

Finally, a search committee has been formed to seek and evaluate candidates to serve as the university’s next Faculty Athletic Representative, in anticipation of the retirement of professor emeritus of law Jim O’Fallon, who has served as FAR for 25 years. The committee, chaired by Andy Karduna, associate professor of human physiology, is requesting suggestions for candidates between now and April 10, and you may find more information here.

I look forward to sharing updates with you at the April Senate meeting from both the UO Foundation Board of Trustees meeting, which I am attending currently, and the Institutional Board of Trustees meeting later this month.