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

Thank you, President Kyr. Good afternoon everyone. I want to first let you know that Provost Bronet is not able to attend today’s senate meeting because she is at the University of Michigan with Vice Presidents Yvette Alex-Assensoh and Robin Homes for a national meeting on campus climate.

In her absence, the provost asked that I provide an update on the strategic planning process. As you know, we are in the middle of an important process of updating our strategic plan to support our mission and overall competitive excellence goals. The provost has created four task force groups to focus on how to support the specific goals of the university:

1. To improve student access and support; 
2. To support research, discovery, and graduate education excellence;
3. To attract and retain outstanding, diverse faculty and staff;  and
4. To enhance campus infrastructure and technology.

Frances appreciates receiving the names of people who might serve on the task force groups from Senate President Kyr. The Provost will announce those groups as soon as all of the membership is finalized. During this academic year, these task force groups will play an integral role in writing the strategic plan for implementing and achieving the goals of the Competitive Excellence initiative.

I’d like to turn now to the major topic of today’s senate meeting — improving campus safety by improving the way the University of Oregon addresses all forms of sexual misconduct and violence.

Let me start with a personal note. As a father (and even more recently as a grandfather), I am deeply concerned about a culture that objectifies young women’s sexuality and tends to condone male sexual exploitation. Not only have I been committed to educating my own children to make wise personal decisions and teaching them to protect themselves and others from sexual predators, as a sociologist, I have also studied patterns of gender asymmetry, sexual privilege, and gender-based power differentials. I understand that we have a widespread cultural problem that today manifests itself on college campuses in unique ways. With the issue of sexual violence and objectification rising on the national agenda, we find that we must deal with it in new ways. It may make us uncomfortable, but we need to deal with the issue directly, and we have an opportunity to show others how to confront it head on.

The University of Oregon is committed to creating a safe and respectful campus free from all forms of sexual misconduct and violence. To meet this commitment, all members of the campus community must work together to improve the campus climate, to prevent sexual misconduct and violence, to encourage reporting, to support survivors, and to address the many complicated issues that exacerbate the problem such as alcohol and drug use, as well as gender and bias issues. We must do this as a community.

The University of Oregon began working to address sexual violence on campus several years ago with the creation of new prevention efforts, reporting policies, strategic investments, and the Grove’s Report that reviewed Student Life’s prevention messaging.

This issue received renewed attention last spring when the White House Task Force issued its “Not Alone” report and as the Department of Education began investigating colleges across the country for their handling of sexual assault issues. Around the same time, we were dealing with some high profile cases on our own campus.

Awareness of the problem galvanized the nation. The spotlight locally divided our campus. It left many members of our community feeling unsafe, unfairly targeted, confused about the law and our responsibility, and deeply saddened at both the local and national problem that has devastated so many young people. We share that pain; me, Frances, Robin, everyone in this room, our students, faculty and staff, our alumni, and the community and university family. One key thing that came out of this intense debate and scrutiny was a call to action to do better and a redoubling of efforts to make a real improvement in the safety and culture of our campus.

The plan going forward must be a comprehensive, sustained, and long-term commitment that dedicates focused attention, research, and resources to addressing sexual misconduct and violence. This comprehensive plan must be informed by the work and perspectives of a broad group of campus and community constituents, as well as national best and promising practices.

The University of Oregon will benefit from several complementary and parallel efforts now underway. We must consider all of the information and recommendations from these efforts in order to create a comprehensive plan. These efforts include:

• The University Senate’s Task Force recommendations that you are considering today
• The President’s Review Panel’s report and recommendations due in early December
• A university-wide analysis of prevention efforts coordinated by Student Life
• The White House Task Force report and other national efforts
• The US Department of Education guidance on Title IX and final rule changes to the Clery Act
• And the Grove’s Report commissioned by Student Life in 2013

The task force recommendations will inform this comprehensive plan and our community-wide effort to improve campus safety and respect. I thank the task force for all the hard work that went into developing the report. I am very pleased to see that many of these recommendations are already underway on campus and will integrate well into a comprehensive plan. Things like coordination of prevention efforts across various units or the need to establish confidential reporting are clearly needed and are actively in progress. Others recommendations are helpful, but suggest a different organizational structure or reporting relationship than I had envisioned. I appreciate the senate’s sense of urgency, and I feel that urgency as well. However, many of the task force recommendations include timelines that do not fit in with the planning efforts we already have underway, so those will need to be adjusted accordingly.

I will share the recommendations today with the President’s Review Panel, Student Life, and all of the units working collectively on these issues. By early December I expect to receive the President’s Review Panel’s recommendations, the gap study recommendations from Student Life, and additional local and national research data. We will make all these reports and recommendations available to the entire campus community on the president’s website. Since that will be finals week, we will need to engage students, faculty and staff, and the entire campus community to discuss options and integrate efforts as we begin winter term. It seems clear from the large turnout and strong opinions shared at the task force public forum on Monday that we must engage the campus community further before we move ahead. The university will hold public meetings and discussions so we can explore how the various proposals fit together with the aim of identifying areas of overlap and possible consensus initiatives. My leadership team will advise me so we can determine how the university can best focus our energy and invest resources to make the greatest impact on the campus climate and to improve student safety.

This will depend on building productive coalitions, not on pitting different parts of the campus against each other. We must work together as a campus community to integrate efforts and build relationships. This is only possible if we do not play into stereotypes, marginalize groups of students or specific departments, or create walls and barriers to prevention efforts and community building. As the national campaign suggests, “It’s on Us.” This is our collective challenge and our joint responsibility. We must work together to face this challenge and to end sexual misconduct and violence.

Acting Provost Bronet, our full leadership team, and I have a deep gratitude to everyone who has invested time and huge amounts of energy to our shared goal of making the University of Oregon a safe and respectful place to learn and work. We are grateful to the senate task force for its work.  We value the perspective and expertise you bring to this process, and we are ready to review recommendations this body approves in this meeting as we work on a comprehensive plan to address sexual misconduct and violence on campus.