The following is the text of the president's prepared remarks to the University Senate at its regular monthly meeting.

Good afternoon.

I know you have a full agenda, so I will keep my remarks to three topics today: the Board of Trustees’ preparation to assume governance, funding for our clusters of excellence faculty hires, and the university’s mission statement.

The Board of Trustees of the University of Oregon convened on our campus at the end of March for only their second full gathering, and had a very productive meeting. As we near the July 1 date for the board to assume governance of the university, the scope and significance of the changes we have made are becoming clearer. We have embarked on a major transition for the UO, unlike that of any public university now in operation.

July 1, 2014, is truly a watershed moment for our university—one full of great opportunity, plenty of hard work, and a path that will help us climb ever higher in prominence even as we accommodate the persistent decline in state support of the last decade and a half.  We have a board committed to our mission, knowledgeable of what we do, and keen to help create resources to do it better. With that deadline approaching, the trustees’ discussions and actions are by necessity very substantive and very focused. The timeline for our board to establish policies and protocols that will enable us to function independent of the State Board of Higher Education is compressed, requiring efficiency as the trustees address a great volume of crucial work.  

As I shared with the campus last week, I am very pleased with the trustees’ progress, and the thoughtfulness with which they are considering matters of great importance to our university. They have dedicated a lot of time and energy to this project. They passed tuition and fee recommendations by the deadline required by the State Board—a tight deadline that, unfortunately, necessitated that they meet during Spring Break, a scheduling shortcoming we will work to avoid in the future. The board also received a series of reports, including our planned response to the Higher Education Coordinating Committee (HECC) on new initiatives designed to improve recruitment, retention, and graduation rates; and an update on the short legislative session.

Additionally, the board discussed the university’s proposed policy on delegation of authority. This policy would allow the trustees to authorize others to act on their behalf, particularly the president and faculty, a standard practice for public boards to foster operational efficiency. The policy is intended to maintain the principal delegation practices of the State Board of Higher Education and apply them to our new board. I regret that we were not able to get the material describing this policy out for comment and reflection in a more timely fashion.

At the meeting, President Paris, Professor Bonine, and others raised very important concerns that the timing of the proposed policy language posting did not allow sufficient time for comment from the campus community. The trustees agreed that more time for input was needed, passed a temporary policy allowing the president to act in the interim, and asked the University Senate to establish a process for collecting input on a permanent policy. The timeline, while predicated by the workload, was unfortunate, and we will work to do better in the future. We look forward to receiving input from campus—I do and the board does. We encourage you to participate in this process to share your insight with the board. We have provided President Paris with a side-by-side comparison of the SBHE policy and the proposed Board of Trustees policy to aid in the discussion and understanding of these particular policies. We will have much more of this work to do together as we review hundreds of policies the university has operated under over the last 90 years.

While this process has presented challenges, it has also illuminated some of the great benefits of having a local board. Proposals like this one can be discussed and changed much more easily when you have a dedicated, local group of trustees focused on one institution’s needs and goals. That advantage is clearly beginning to resonate with our university peers in the state, as every public university in Oregon is now requesting a governing board. Perhaps ironically, all of the universities that once opposed us in advocating for local governing boards are now asking for their own. Last week the SBHE granted boards for two institutions and conditionally granted boards for two others. We are proud to have led the way to this complete transformation of the state’s governance of higher education and look forward to supporting our colleagues however we can in their transitions.

I remain strongly committed to the continuance and strengthening of shared governance, as is the new board. We welcome your input, and look forward to working together in the next step toward our exciting new chapter of University of Oregon governance.

Next, I would like to comment on the provost’s clusters of excellence faculty hiring initiative. As you have heard, this initiative will enable us to hire two to five new faculty members in each of several key academic areas, raising already strong programs to the level of the best in the country or the world. The provost sought feedback on the process throughout the winter, and is now accepting proposals until May 1.

Monday, Provost Coltrane and I were able to announce $1.5 million in funding for the first phase of this important hiring initiative. This recurring funding comes from efficiencies gained through organizational changes we implemented last April.

At the same time, the re-energizing of our budget model under the leadership of Vice President for Finance and Administration Jamie Moffitt and Vice Provost for Budget and Planning Brad Shelton is enabling better alignment between our operational budget for research and institutional priorities, and will allow us to operate more strategically. I thank them for that effort. Supporting the University of Oregon’s core academic mission is our top priority, and we will seek additional funding for the clusters of excellence faculty hiring initiative in our upcoming public campaign and through deliberate discussions in future budgets.

Finally, I’d like to address the university mission statement. We will soon begin reviewing our mission statement, a process that each of Oregon’s public universities will undertake with their respective boards in concert with the Higher Education Coordinating Commission (HECC). Tomorrow I will address the HECC in advance of this process to review and revise the mission statement for presentation to that body by the September deadline.

The University of Oregon mission statement was crafted almost 20 years ago. It was written and approved by the campus and the State Board of Higher Education in 1995 and reaffirmed in 2008. It is a very good statement—at its core, our mission has remained unchanged since the university’s founding—but it is time to take a fresh look at the language, especially in light of this new state context.

To prepare for the Board of Trustees to provide a revised mission statement to the HECC in September, we intend to engage in a rigorous and rapid campus process under the guidance of our provost, gathering input from staff, students, faculty, administrators, and our Board of Trustees.

In my own view, our statement might more greatly emphasize our special role in the state, particularly by stressing the importance of research to the mission of the university and how that affects the education of both our undergraduate and graduate students, and our service to Oregonians.

As a recent AAU statement has emphasized, “Research universities are defined by their serious and pervasive commitment to research. Research and discovery permeates everything we do, from teaching and learning to engagement with business, government, and the broader community.”

I hope to impress upon the HECC the important and unique role the university plays in the long-term generation and dissemination of knowledge and innovation through research. It is our view these priorities are not yet adequately reflected in the HECC’s mission, or the state’s 40-40-20 graduation goals.

As I mentioned, Provost Coltrane will lead the campus discussion of our mission statement, and will share more about how to participate in the process, as well as offer input.

Thank you for your time and attention.