Good afternoon. I am pleased to join you today in this, the fifth week of the term. 

I’d like to start with a brief note about the student workers’ strike.

Student employment at the university is an important part of our collective work, and we want to preserve our ability to offer part-time, on-campus work to our students. We greatly value the contributions of student employees, and we know that these positions provide not only a student-centered work environment but also the chance to develop a professional skill set and serve as a resume builder, while also benefiting the departments in which they work. 

Regardless of our differences at the bargaining table, we remain a community of students, faculty, and staff pursuing a shared mission. We hope, very much, to reach a swift, responsible resolution to the strike. 

We were prepared for the possibility of a strike. Our top priority will continue to be on preserving core services, and we are working actively to maintain service and support with as little disruption as possible.

Looming large, of course, is the national landscape. This is a challenging time for higher education and certainly the most challenging in the many decades that I have been in higher education. Today I’ll focus on Washington, but there are many other things happening around the world and in our country, that give us pause.

I don’t need to go into detail about the challenges emanating from President Trump’s administration. Among these: a focused assault on long-standing commitments to DEI.

Diversity is critical for the university—diversity of perspectives, backgrounds, and lived experiences. We are committed to the success of rural students, religiously devout members of our community, veterans, politically conservative students and colleagues, and students, staff and faculty from historically underrepresented groups, international, LBGQT+ students, staff and faculty, indeed, everybody in our community. 

Diversity of thought and experience is a critical component of excellence. And when we look at data—whether on student success, retention or climate—there are troubling differences across groups. We are committed to pursuing evidence-based initiatives to improve areas where we are lagging and to continually strive for excellence. 

Changes in visa policy are also creating fear for our international students and those who support them. I am pleased to report that all four of the international students whose visas were affected have had their SEVIS records restored.

Over the last several weeks, as Provost Long reported last senate meeting, we worked to provide the affected students with support for their academics—including two who are on track to graduate this term—and to ensure they had access to legal resources, including by working with the ASUO. We will continue to be on the lookout for what comes next and to do all we can to support all our people, including international students and Dreamers. 

Another troubling area of concern is the seeming willingness to dismantle the research infrastructure that has made the U.S. the leader in discovery and a magnet for scientists and students from around the world. 

We are keeping close tabs on this—holding town halls (as we did with immigration issues), evaluating our legal options in the face of attestation requests, and providing guidance and support to faculty members with grants that have been terminated or subject to stop work orders. We are also participating in litigation with the AAU, which has successfully obtained injunctions against precipitous, calamitous reductions of overhead rates. 

In this period of disruption and where funding demands outstrip our resources, some have asked about our endowment. The University of Oregon endowment is comprised of thousands of individual agreements between donors, the university and the UO Foundation. Those agreements are represented by individual “funds” that are created within the endowment so that we can account for how the gift is used as part of our agreement and stewardship responsibilities to the donors.

Almost all the endowment agreements are restricted. These legally binding restricted endowment agreements create funds that are earmarked for specific purposes by donors, such as scholarships, research, or faculty positions. These restrictions mean universities can't freely use the money for other needs.

There is federal law that places strict rules on endowments, so that in most cases it is illegal to spend down these funds, as doing so would jeopardize future financial health and our ability to support ongoing programs and initiatives that we legally agreed to do for our donors. Endowments are designed to provide financial stability over the long term. 

In summary, there are legal and ethical obligations tied to how endowment funds are managed and spent. We must adhere to these guidelines to maintain trust with donors and comply with regulations

I’d also like to take a moment to address our overall approach. Some in our community, and I don’t begrudge this, are requesting that I make statements (by way of a mass email to campus) about various issues. 

As president, I balance public advocacy with protecting, as best I can, the university and particularly our more vulnerable community members. Weighing that real tension, I believe my views on politics, democracy or other topics are much less important than the actions I take to support students, staff and faculty of the university. 

As Allison has mentioned, I am speaking to you from Washington D.C., where I have met with every member of the Congressional delegation and their staffers. Sunday through Tuesday this week I was with AAU presidents as we work to defend and strengthen higher education. Earlier this month, I met with the Oregon attorney general and last week, as Talik and Allison mentioned, I was in Salem for UO Lobby Day.

In a couple weeks, I’m meeting in person with Big Ten colleagues and presidents. And virtually every other member of UO leadership—including our general counsel, vice president for communications, provost, and federal relations professionals—already have formalized relationships with our counterparts in the Big Ten through which they meet regularly to collaborate and partner and address the challenges we are facing. 

These days, this includes conferring with and advising each other about how the federal administration’s decisions impact our universities. 

And these colleagues similarly work with their counterparts, as do I, through organizations like the AAU and APLU. I have been on what seems like countless calls. 

Perhaps, most important: We have been particularly focused on providing support to those directly impacted. And we continue to monitor the various lawsuits that develop—joining when the UO has specific additional relevant information to offer. 

For example, VP Razdan provided a declaration for the very first lawsuit in early February brought by higher education associations, including the AAU and APLU, about changes to NIH grants policy; and colleagues in Global Engagement provided declarations in support of our first student to get her reinstatement in federal court and for a suit related to SEVIS/visas that was being planned by several states’ attorneys general. We are looking at how we might support suits related to the NEH and tariffs.

Just because I am not always being quoted or “front and center” doesn’t mean we are not acting or that we are in retreat. A key question one needs to  ask before speaking is, “who needs to know something?” Our approach has been for people who are being targeted and affected by policies of the federal government to hear from our leaders who are closest to the issue. 

• E.g., AR on research funding.
• Dennis and his team to our international community members.
• Our health services to those receiving gender affirming care.                                     

Of course, the provost and I have both been speaking openly since January about the challenges, including in front of our board of trustees and the research community, and here at meetings of the university senate. These remarks, or “statements”, can all be found verbatim on our respective websites.

I will continue to voice my concerns and advocate for the UO. And please understand, we are deeply engaged on all the issues buffeting the university. 

I want to pivot a bit in my remarks to say something about this moment and how we collectively respond. In dark times, we also need to look within.

Let’s be clear: what we are experiencing now can only happen when significant segments of the population lack faith in the value and power of higher education. 

I will make an assertion: think about “the administration,” our unions, our students, OAs and faculty. We have much more in common, much more that we collectively agree with, than that over which we disagree. 

When higher ed is in the midst of an existential crisis, our common commitment to the deeper purpose of higher education is our greatest strength. 

But we sometimes behave in ways that do not reflect this. I worry that our lack of trust in one another, our inability to see common ground, are threats to the greatness of the University of Oregon and threats to higher education in the state of Oregon and beyond.

As I dig into UO’s history and institutional culture, it’s clear this has been a long-standing issue. But I believe the stakes are higher now in this period of crisis than they have been ever before. Given what we are facing, we cannot afford such mistrust.

I appreciate the fact that being at a resource-constrained university is hard. But we have many enduring strengths:

• We have great people. I’ll give a shout out to Alison and Dyana (and last year, Gerard). They have been terrific senate leaders. We have very talented people across the university.
• We bring together people from different backgrounds and lived experiences —50 states, 90 countries—we bring together in a community of learning. This is precious.
• This community is organized to interrogate truth, buttressed by reason, science and a deep understanding of what it means to be human. 

But I think we must do more to pull together. That means working actively to consider and balance competing interests, recognizing of course that there will be conflict, but using dialog to better understand the issues at hand. And seeking in earnest to assume good faith and to understand others’ reasoning for their actions and choices.

I want us to move away from inflexible demands and instead collectively focus on our core mission and the value we provide—to our students, our state, our nation, and to higher education and the pursuit of knowledge in our disciplines. 

As we do, we also can model collaboration and engagement on difficult issues from a basis of trust. This in turn helps equip students to develop applicable skills to deal with the increasing complexity of our world. 

My intention with this part of my message today is to be clear: I’m looking to reset the dynamic. I want us to consider how we reset the foundation of our relationships and our dialogue—not as members of “administration” or “faculty” or this group or that group, but as committed colleagues joined in the work of higher education. 

How do we find greater grace and empathy to navigate our internal differences? 

How do we listen actively rather than listening for the chance to interject with our own idea? 

I’m interested in hearing your constructive ideas and working together—through structures like this university senate—to be a more cohesive group that can disagree without losing the care I know we all have for higher education and this university community. There is no doubt that we are stronger—that we can be in fact remarkable—when we align ourselves to support our core mission, find areas of common interest, and work together to move our university forward. If we fail to do so now, we will only compound the fracturing effects of federal actions, state appropriations, and declining trust in our institutions. 

We have a lot at stake.

Thank you.