at least you found your way to McArthur Court.
I only arrived in Oregon in June, and when I came there was a certain set of expectations. In fact, I would say that Eugene was marketed to me by my bosses. They didn’t have to try very hard – I was just so excited to get a job – but try they did.
For instance, there was the line of argument that even though they weren’t paying much, there would be great benefits. That all went out the window when the state legislature decided to overhaul health care for university employees. I know why they did it – Oregon is in a massive budget crunch – but for me, it still kind of sucks.
Then there was the environment at the University of Oregon. Some people might not have a high opinion of the academics at U of O, because they haven’t been all that great in the recent past. But if you asked my bosses when they hired me, they would have said that U of O was on its way up. It was becoming bigger and better, doing better research, attracting better faculty and staff, and helping more students. Across the country, people were recognizing that U of O was changing. Three times more students are applying to the school now than they were five years ago.
Well.
If you asked my bosses now, they would mutter something about the Chancellor and swear under their breath. Or maybe just right out loud.
I didn’t know much about politics or education or education politics in Oregon until last week, when the state board voted not to renew the university president’s contract at the end of the fiscal year. From there, things only escalated. President Lariviere – who wore a fedora, loved football games, and raised an incredible amount of funds for the school – had broad student support and even stronger faculty support, and everyone came out cheering for him. He made statements about how Oregon needed to continue to pursue excellence. That rubbed the board the wrong way so on Monday they straight up fired him.
That has caused a lot of anger, resentment, and unrest – and even people who were neutral about Lariviere before back him now. After all, when asked why they did it, they responded that it had fired Lariviere due to a “personal matter.” They hadn’t consulted anyone in the university community, and they hadn’t even really publicized their meetings. It went behind the backs of the students and faculties and happened very, very quickly. Even the people I’ve talked to who didn’t like Lariviere say that he shouldn’t have been let go in this way – and that their distrust of the board now far outweighs any dislike they ever had of Lariviere’s policies.
And what was the board’s problem with Lariviere? Again, I’m not entirely sure, because I wasn’t paying attention until everything blew up. But the gist of it seems to be this. Despite being the state’s flagship university, U of O actually receives the least support, per-student, from Oregon; it ranks last among public universities in terms of state per-student funding according to the Association of American Universities. In the face of these huge budget problems, Lariviere actually found more funding and made his university get better, not worse. He hoped to partner with the state to get the U of O its own board, because it is currently run by a board which oversees all of the state universities. He called it “A New Partnership.”
Yeah, so much for that partnership.
In their explanation, besides stating that it was a “personal matter”, the chancellor indicated that one of their problems with Lariviere was that he wanted too much for U of O. Their goal, they said, was for all of the Oregon universities to be excellent. In essence, the wealth should be spread around and Lariviere shouldn’t be doing such a good job making U of O great.
Which, let’s think about this for a moment.
(1) Do you seriously hire someone and then tell them to do a little bit less excellent of a job?
(2) Given that U of O is already getting less per-student funding from the state, and that state contributions only make up 8 % of the budget, why do they even care what Lariviere is doing?
On Monday I was sitting in a department lunch with a few professors, who found the whole situation ridiculous. They are in the midst of a “cluster hire” for some biological mathematicians, and the idea is to get about four really good candidates and convince them to come to Oregon because they other three are – strength in numbers (haha).
“How are we going to get them to come?” one professor asked. “We don’t even have a president, and the state board is making less than no commitment to funding and excellence.”
The faculty is pretty much ripshit mad.
And so – you were wondering how I was getting to Mac Court – on Wednesday the university senate held a meeting. They invited the chancellor down and a member of the state board, and they invited the faculty. A truly amazing number of faculty showed up, many wearing green and yellow and a few wearing fedoras.
And they asked the chancellor questions. They asked biting, angry questions. They called him horrible. They said he should resign. They said he didn’t understand education, that he didn’t even try to understand the U of O, that his whole board should be disbanded. They asked what he had learned from this experience and he didn’t answer the question. They asked if he would rehire Lariviere and he said no. They asked if he had purposely done this during finals week so everyone would be too busy to notice. They asked him whether they wanted a degree from U of O to be worth anything in the future.
He did a terrible job. He didn’t even try to be sympathetic. He would say how he wanted to have open communication and work with the faculty, and they laughed.
A former dean of the architecture school talked about how his program used to be nothing. Did I complain when the business school got a new library, he asked? No. When the law school got a new building, did he say it should be torn down because we didn’t have one? No. Instead, like many deans, he went back to his program and tried to make it better. Today, the U of O architecture program is one of the best in the country. The professor laughed at the notion that one institution should be less excellent to allow room for the others. We should all grow together, he said.
When Lariviere came into Mac Court to hand over his authority to the senate president, the clapping went on for literally minutes. He cried.
When the chancellor made his opening remarks? Maybe ten people clapped.
This guy is not going to sleep well tonight – and if he does, then he seriously does have a problem.
This was not the way that I thought I was going to find Mac Court, but I’m so glad that I did. Watching those faculty – many of whom prefaced their remarks by saying they had taught at U of O for thirty years – stand up and demand to be taken seriously was kind of incredible. Gray-haired men and women, bowties, blazers – many people think of college professors as affable. Today, the faculty was not affable. They even talked about going on strike.
Lariviere is not coming back, but people at the university have been galvanized, and it was cool to watch.
I’m not even Oregonian, but after this week, I stand with the hat.
-follow the events with the We Love Our Pres blog.
