President Karl Scholz gave the following remarks to the board of trustees on Tuesday, September 16, 2025.
Good afternoon.
Trustees, colleagues who are listening and others, thank you for being here and for all that you do for the university. The start of the year is, is a deeply energizing time. New students and their families are arriving on campus, faculty and other instructors preparing syllabi and labs.
Sports teams are back, and duck spirit is showing up across Eugene. It's really one of the most special times in the university calendar. This fall that energy is paired with a palpable sense of strain and sadness. For the past several months, our community has been grappling with hard financial realities. We've had difficult conversations, made, painful choices, and we've started announcing changes we know have a deep impact on individuals and the institution.
I want to acknowledge Jamie Moffitt and the budget team for their excellent work and for their presentations yesterday and today. It provides the context for our work on the budget. They unpacked a structural deficit of $30 million or more in our education and general fund structural in this case, meaning that without action, it's permanent, not temporary, and it will grow over time. The E&G Budget is the core budget that supports instruction, academic support, and much of our student services.
And that gap did not emerge overnight. It's the result of years of rapid cost growth, particularly in compensation and benefits combined with slow growth in tuition revenue, and only modest increases in state funding. So this fall marks the beginning of a multi-year process to right the ship, rebalancing our expenses with expected revenues, and to set the university on a sustainable course.
Last week, we shared with our employees our next set of decisions permanent. Recurring budget reductions across all administrative units, schools, and colleges, and unfortunately, the elimination of a number of positions across all employee groups. These cuts from spring, summer, and fall total $29.2 million.
Our decisions reflect months of planning and extensive consultation. We worked closely with deans, vice presidents, department heads, and the university senate task force on budget reductions to identify options, so we could protect as best we could, the academic core, and prioritize student needs. We listened to a wide range of voices and try to apply consistent principles of fairness and long-term thinking.
Still no amount of process makes this easier. These are people's jobs. These are colleagues we heard very profound testimony from this morning. It's people who have contributed meaningfully to our mission and community. No president wants to deliver the news that we must reduce our workforce.
Certainly, I did not in a pretty short period of time. I've grown to love the University of Oregon and its people, and so this is not the kind of situation I had hoped to have during my early years as president. But I also know leadership means making decisions that are in the long term best interest of the institution, even when they are painful in the short run, this is what everybody should expect and ask me to do.
So why is it important to take this step now? Like households, universities must live within their means. It takes considerable time to adjust budgets. Having to make hasty, and much deeper cuts, or quick fixes like hiring freezes or across the board reductions are not strategic.
Of course this isn't happening in a vacuum.
The challenges we face are part of a broader transformation of higher education. Demographic shifts are reshaping enrollment patterns. Public skepticism with higher education is growing. The economic model of higher education, particularly for public research universities like ours, is under intense pressure.
Our peer institutions are experiencing similar disruptions, and competition for students is fiercer than ever. As an example, just this year, the University of California system admitted 13,000 more students than last year, and they're not alone. We're all working harder to attract, retain, and support students.
The truth is we can't future proof the university, but we can prepare it. That means making difficult choices. Now, this is also why we are placing renewed emphasis on outcomes like four-year graduation rates and support for life after the University of Oregon. Serving students well means helping them progress efficiently, connect their academic experiences to meaningful careers, and emerge from Oregon ready to lead, contribute, and thrive.
I also want to emphasize the central role of the liberal arts in our vision for the University of Oregon. The power of a liberal arts education relies in its breadth. Its rigor and its ability to prepare students for more than just their first job. It prepares them for a lifetime of critical thinking, creative problem solving, and civic engagement.
In an age of growing complexity, our society needs graduates who can question critically, think logically, reason effectively, communicate clearly, act creatively, and live ethically. I'm embarrassed to say this next line. I said my favorite Harvard Business Review title. Trust me, I don't spend a lot of time reading the Harvard Business Review, but there was a great title this, this summer.
“AI won't replace humans, but humans with AI will replace humans without AI” and the liberal arts are critical for navigating the new economy. This relevance to the economy and society is the mission. The liberal arts are essential to that mission, and they remain essential to our identity as a public university.
To do that, whether in the arts, sciences, humanities, or our wonderful professional schools, we need to have our fiscal house in order. We cannot pursue excellence if we are constantly on the edge of instability. The tough decisions we're making now are not about retrenchment. They're about creating the conditions for long-term success in people, in programs, and in the work that will shape our future.
Our goal is not to simply balance the budget. Our goal is to free ourselves to dream big again and to pursue institutional momentum with confidence.
That brings me briefly to Oregon Rising, our institutional strategic plan. In the months ahead, you'll see continued progress on this plan. You'll hear about initiatives that enhance advising, connect learning to career outcomes, and to expand faculty excellence. Most of all, you'll see us using Oregon Rising as our North Star to navigate this challenging purpose, challenging period with purpose and resolve.
As Oregon Rising guides our priorities, strong leadership ensures we can deliver on them. That's why I want to briefly acknowledge recent changes to our leadership team.
We're pleased to welcome Derek Kindle as our new Vice President for Enrollment Management. He joined us this summer. Derek brings a national reputation for strategic enrollment thinking and will be vital to our efforts to attract and retain students, especially in this volatile environment.
At the same time, we bid farewell to AR Razdan, our vice president for research and innovation, who accepted a role as the chief research officer [for planning and partnerships in academic affairs] at the University of Utah. We’re grateful for his many contributions and wish him well in his new role.
Transitions like these remind us of the importance of institutional continuity and the need to keep building strong systems, teams, and culture that can carry us through change.
Let me close by returning to a simple idea, and that is hope.
Budget reductions are painful. Layoffs are heartbreaking and the future is uncertain. But the University of Oregon is not shrinking from the moment. We are facing it with clarity, compassion, and conviction. We are supporting our students, faculty, and staff through transition, and we are doing so with the long view in mind.
The decisions we are making will allow us to invest in the people and programs that will lead us into the future. They will help us continue to be a place where academic rigor, research excellence, and student success are not just goals but lived realities. I'm grateful to each of you for your steady leadership and support.
I am deeply, deeply grateful to our faculty, staff, and our students for their resilience, and I remain confident that together we are positioning the University of Oregon to rise stronger, more focused, and more prepared to fulfill its mission for generations to come.
Thank you.