President Scholz delivered the following remarks to the UO Senate on Wednesday, April 8, 2026.
Good afternoon. It’s good to be with you.
I want to use my time today to talk about enrollment, our budget, and a bit of good news.
Let me start with enrollment, because it’s the area where we have the least clarity and a lot at stake. Tuition is the single biggest item in our operating budget. Competition for prospective students—especially non-resident students—is fiercer than it has ever been. Decision day isn’t until early May, and most students and families wait until the last few days to choose their school, so we don’t have a full picture yet.
Many people are working extraordinarily hard on enrollment. Derek Kindle and his enrollment management team have been effective and creative.
- They've overhauled the admissions review process so that every first-year application is now scored individually, with decisions released on set dates.
- Admissions counselors are writing personalized notecards.
- The Admissions Office held receptions in 37 markets across the country and in multiple international locations.
- Provost Long and I partnered with Undergrad Education and Student Success on a new Provost's Undergraduate Research Assistantship that will provide research funding for roughly 60 incoming, outstanding first-year students.
- The Clark Honors College significantly expanded its offers of admission.
- Our deans are recording personal welcome videos for admitted students.
I share all of this because I want you to understand: we are taking this as seriously as anything we do.
There is another key part of the enrollment challenge that I think is going quite well. Students, for the most part, are having great experiences in your classrooms. That is the thing no marketing campaign can replicate. When a student goes home and tells their family or a high-school mentor about a course that changed how they think, that is recruitment. When they tell their friends, that is retention. The work you do in the classroom is one of the most powerful tools we have, and it's one of the things that makes this place outstanding. Thank you for teaching great classes.
I know many of you are thinking about budgets. Over the past year, peer universities across the nation have also had to make significant and painful decisions. Here in Oregon, most of our public institutions and many K–12 districts are in the most challenging budgetary situations they’ve seen in a decade.
The University of Oregon is in a better position than many with stable research funding, a strong philanthropic community, and solid in-state applications. The steps we took last year to address our structural deficit helped create a stronger foundation. But I won’t pretend we’re out of the woods. We will have significantly more information on enrollment by mid-May.
Provost Long and I are already in productive conversations with deans, senate leadership and the senate budget committee, and others to ensure we have a clear process, if one is needed, moving forward. I also want to reiterate something I told the Board of Trustees: should we need to make difficult budget decisions, they will not happen over the summer. We learned from last year. There will be even more consultation, and there will be more time given to the process.
As for what mechanisms we can use to fund our enterprise, there are a couple things I’d like to speak to about to better understand how we fund our many priorities. The first is the idea that the UO Foundation can solve our budget challenges. I understand why people look in that direction. Our philanthropic community is extraordinary, and their generosity is a great strength. But the vast majority of the assets held at the Foundation are restricted in their use. Donors designate them for specific purposes, and we are legally and ethically bound to honor those designations. Philanthropy is a vital part of how we grow, but it is not the mechanism for balancing the operating budget. I want to be transparent about that so we can have realistic conversations about the tools we actually have.
I also want to talk about athletics, because I know it’s a subject that generates strong feelings in this room, and it is often misunderstood.
Athletics is a great gateway for people to learn about our academic enterprise. Big Ten membership has increased our national visibility. Our athletics programs generated $649 million in economic impact last year and sustained nearly 3,800 jobs. And they are financially self-supporting—they do not draw from tuition revenue or general state operating support. In fact, Athletics returns nearly $20 million to the university in scholarship and administrative reimbursement.
I also know some people look at athletic revenues and wonder why more dollars can’t flow to the academic side. At a high level, there has never been greater financial pressure on top-tier intercollegiate sports. To repeat myself, for Oregon, Athletics generates enormous benefits for the university and our region. And it is financially self-sustaining.
Like the Foundation, gifts to athletics are restricted to specific purposes, and we are legally and ethically bound to honor those designations. Media revenues are committed to scholarships, coaches and administrative support, Title IX compliance, facilities, and to the NCAA revenue-sharing model that now governs college sports. And there are equity implications. When we talk about redistributing athletic revenue, we are often talking about reducing investment in opportunities for Olympic-sport student-athletes, many of whom come from backgrounds where that scholarship is the difference between college and no college.
I’m not alone in thinking about this. Berkeley Chancellor Rich Lyons recently wrote to his faculty that no single element of what Berkeley does has a greater impact on alumni engagement than intercollegiate athletics and that those alumni send great students, provide internships, and fuel the university’s capital campaign.
Michael Crow, the President of Arizona State has restructured athletics to be fully integrated into the university and, it’s reported, that athletics receives tens of millions of dollars annually from the institution. At Duke, President Vincent Price describes athletics as a vital part of the educational project and like Berkeley, Arizona State and most other institutions, Duke transfers significant dollars to their athletic department.
These are not athletics-first presidents. They are academic leaders who understand that a strong athletic program and a strong academic program are not in competition. They reinforce one another. And that is how I see it at Oregon.
There’s a common sentiment I continue to come back to. We are a large institution with many facets. There will sometimes be tensions across schools, colleges, units and divisions but when you look at us as a whole, we are one university, and I care about it all. I know you do the same.
I’d next like to share some good news. I recently learned Armaan Hajarizadeh, a junior majoring in computer science and business administration who is also in the Clark Honors College, received a prestigious Goldwater Scholarship. There were only 454 of those awarded across the entire country for next school year.
On the research front: we are in the final stages of our search for a new Vice President for Research and Innovation, with candidates visiting campus starting next week. Please participate in the search and provide feedback on the candidates. Our research expenditures on grants are on pace to exceed last fiscal year despite a difficult federal funding environment, which is a testament to the quality and tenacity of our scholars. And the second philanthropically funded Knight Campus building opened this month.
I’m also pleased to share that after competitive national searches, Emily Tanner-Smith is the new dean of the College of Education. And Regina Lawrence is the new dean of the School of Journalism and Communication. Emily and Regina are incredible educators and advocates. They’re well respected and outstanding. I’m excited to continue to work with both of them.
I’ll end with the following:
These are not easy times for higher education. Public trust has eroded. Federal support is uncertain. And I know some of you are frustrated with decisions that affect you or your colleagues. I understand that.
But I remain deeply optimistic about this university. When I am out there with prospective students and families, community members, donors, alumni, business and political leaders, and civic representatives, the thing I am most proud to talk about is the work you do. The research you produce. The students you teach. The lives you change.
I am grateful for the privilege to lead this university, and I don’t take it for granted. I look forward to continuing our work together.
Thank you.