March 13, 1998
The release of the long-awaited Governor's Task Force Report on Higher Education and the Economy in mid-December has shifted the frame of debate from, "Should higher education in Oregon change?" to "How far and how fast?"
The report recommended wide-ranging changes in governance and funding designed to make state schools more responsive to student and state educational needs, Gretchen Hult Pierce, task force vice chair, explained March 5 to more than 140 UO faculty, staff and students.
In a half-hour illustrated briefing, Pierce told the Process for Change Solution Teams gathered at the Casanova Center that she's confident the governor "gets it"--that the paramount change needed is to allow universities to keep their own revenue.
"If you can keep your own revenue," she stressed, "then the task force believes the institutions will have incentives to respond quickly, to find solutions and even to create new sources of revenue."
Chancellor Joe Cox has assured the governor that OUS would "rise to the challenge" by "both doing things differently and doing different things."
One of the first--and a move long advocated by UO officials--will be revamping OUS' funding system. OUS Board vice president Tom Imeson announced that "We expect to have a new budgetary approach with delivery of a proposed budget by late spring."
President Frohnmayer says the OUS budget and finance committee voted in early March to recommend to the board that OUS institutions be allowed to keep their students' tuition and fees.
"That's enormously encouraging," Frohnmayer advised the gathering but said he was worried about misinformation included in publications and in mailings to faculty members by the Association of Oregon Faculties and others. The task force does not recommend abolishing the state system, he said, and the governor has assured OUS presidents that enough funds will be available to make sure no institution would suffer during a switch to a new way of distributing funds.
"Our message has been heard," he said. "Now it is time for the hard work of making high-quality higher education available to increasing numbers of Oregonians."
The task force did not address the need for more state funding, Pierce said, out of a conviction that that would not happen until higher education could be clearer about what services it is providing and what it costs.
"I passionately believe that when you can tell the legislature how many students you are going to serve and what it will cost as the community colleges do, the money will be provided," she said. "It's the way you make the argument."
Pierce also corrected another common misperception about the thrust of the task force work. The task force, she says, recommends strengthening liberal arts education, not technology training, as the key to making higher education more responsive to the marketplace.
"In surveying Oregon employers about the most needed and important skills of their work force," Pierce explains, "what we heard over and over again, across every industry, profession and service area was--critical thinking, problem solving, math competence, communication and teamwork.
"Across nearly every sector, demand is growing for highly skilled professional and technical employees--and the pay for such employees is climbing," Pierce said. "There is a significant clamor for employee capabilities nurtured by the liberal arts."
After months of deliberation and hearings, she said, the 14-member task force identified six trends that affect the state's public colleges and universities.
One, because of the growing knowledge-centered economy, higher education is becoming critical to the economic security of Oregonians and the long-term health of the state. Two, shortages in critical skills and specialties are a growing problem and impeding growth in Oregon industries. Three, the surges of highly education newcomers filling jobs for which Oregonians don't qualify are dramatically changing demographics in the state.
Four, work and learning are blending as never before and for a lifetime. Fifth, the Oregon higher education market is being scrambled by more competition, new kinds of providers and new technologies. Sixth, state funding is declining even while the total demand for higher education and its value to the economy and individuals is growing.
"Given the importance of higher education, the task force believes that Oregon needs to reshape its vision and expectations of higher education," Pierce said. "Learners and their needs at every stage of adult life must lie at the heart of this renewed mission."
After Pierce's talk, 18 solution teams participating in the UO Process for Change presented their preliminary reports, listing dozens of ideas for addressing critical issues identified Fall Term. As each solution team finishes its report, it will be posted on the Process for Change Website, Provost John Moseley told the group.
"I am really looking forward to the final reports from the teams," Moseley said. "This marketplace of ideas is exactly what we were hoping for."
Preliminary recommendations ranged from strengthening and expanding student counseling, mentoring and advising services to reorganizing the colleges to create shifting interdisciplinary collegia, to offering students a four-year tuition-flat contract. Solution teams will complete their work by March 19.
Strategies for immediate and longer-term implementation and how recommendations for major changes will be evaluated will be coming Spring Term from the Dean's Council, the Faculty Advisory Council, the Senate Executive Committee and the President's Small Executive Staff, Moseley said. Some changes could happen spring term, he added.
Gov. John Kitzhaber's reaction to the Task Force report, as well as a link to download the report itself, can be found at http://www.governor.state.or.us/governor/news/n971219.htm.
The university's Process for Change website is http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~acadaff/change/process.html.
Four Immediate Steps To Reform
Gov. John Kitzhaber asked the Oregon University System Board to enact changes this spring to make higher education in Oregon more learner-centered by:
State schools must pay more attention to providing:
Oregon University System should eliminate barriers to efficient operations and flexibility of institutions and fundamentally reorganize to support a more learner-focused and competitive environment. Specifically:
The State of Oregon should
Additional Recommendations
Unless administrators can be persuaded during an April 2 public hearing to reverse more than 500 proposed special fee changes, come July 1 you'll be paying more to park on campus, to get an X-ray or lab exam and to apply for university housing.
The hearing on special fees, fines, penalties and service charges is set for 3 p.m. April 2 in the EMU Gumwood Room. Submit written comments by 5 p.m. that day to Resource Management, or turn in written or oral testimony April 2 to hearings officer Pam Daener, Resource Management.
Copies of the proposed amendment to OAR 571-60-005 are available for review during business hours at the Knight Library Reserve Room, the Law Library and the President's Office.
To meet rising parking budget costs, the university proposes to increase the price of nearly all parking permits next year for faculty, staff and students by amounts ranging from 15 to 16 percent.
"The primary reason why we're proposing these fee increases is so revenue from the self-supporting parking program can pay for improvements related to bicycles while keeping pace with higher costs for the LTD bus pass program and for scheduled minimum wage increases for student employees," says Public Safety Director Stan Reeves.
Under the plan, 12-month day-use parking permits are going to increase 15.4 percent to $135 for faculty and staff, up from $117 during 1997-98, and to $75 for students, $10 more than this year.
"That means faculty and staff, who typically pay for their parking permits through payroll deduction, would see $15 per month withheld from their paychecks for nine months, $2 more each month than now," Reeves explains.
Similar increases are proposed for second-vehicle permits, night parking passes, car pool permits, motorcycle stickers and regular reserved space permits, but the surcharge for unrestricted reserved permits are expected to hold steady at $50 a month.
Faculty and staff bicyclists using covered storage lockers near Oregon and Deschutes halls will pay $75, a 50 percent increase, and student bicyclists will see their storage locker fee double to $50 a year.
The rate increases, Reeves says, will pay for new program expenses and increased operating costs totaling $75,800.
More than half of that--$41,500--will fund a new half-time bicycle coordinator position and pay for improved maintenance and increased capacity in secure parking for bicycles. Another $20,000 will support installation of lighting fixtures in parking lots at Music, Clinical Services and the EMU.
Increases in the Lane Transit District bus pass contract and in wage and salary rates for student and other parking program employees account for the remaining $4,000 and $10,300, respectively.
Even though expenses to operate the parking program have increased steadily over the years, Reeves says this will be only the second time since 1988 that parking fees have gone up.
"The rates UO employees and students pay are well below those paid to park at Sacred Heart and in downtown Eugene," Reeves pointed out. "The fees charged are those necessary to balance the budget, not to generate excess revenue."
In the spotlight
ADDITION: Two more UO staff members were honored Feb. 23 in Seattle in the 15th annual Council for Advancement and Support of Education District VIII Recognition Program. Alice Sundstrom and Kecia Welt, Lundquist Business, received a bronze award in overall publication design for their Visionaries Award recipient packet. Ten other staff members and three UO offices also were honored, as reported Feb. 27 in News & Views.
David Goodman, University Publications, received a first-place certificate and plaque in the Portland Club Gallery of Superb Printing for the 1997-98 UO Law Bulletin, printed by RonoGraphics.
Hailin Wang, Physics and Center for Optics, is one of six recipients nationwide of Early Career Awards from the National Science Foundation Condensed Matter Physics Division. The award will support his research in semiconductor quantum optics for the next four years.
President Dave Frohnmayer received a 1998 Aubrey Watzek Award presented by Lewis & Clark College for outstanding state leadership.
Lisa Maves, Biology and Neuroscience, has received one of 15 Runyon-Winchell postdoctoral fellowships for research on "A Genetic and Cellular Analysis of Hindbrain Segmentation in Zebrafish," to be conducted during the next three years with Charles Kimmel.
Jim Buch, Student Academic Affairs, was honored Feb. 23 by the Western Guidance and Admissions Assembly with the 1997-98 Distinguished Service Award, for outstanding contributions on behalf of students and educators in the West.
On the move
At the UO Alumni Association, Kelly Evans, assistant director for communications, left March 3 to become director of marketing at Bidwell & Co., a Portland stock brokerage firm. Nikole Koelbel, assistant director for chapter relations, left Feb. 27 to pursue new professional interests in Portland. Jennifer Soulagnet, a June 1997 UO graduate in English and former temporary employee and work-study student for the association, began work on Feb. 23 as alumni events assistant.
Becky Couch-Goodling, formerly in the Arts and Sciences Development Office, joined the Office of the President on March 4 as secretary. She will provide receptionist and budget support, as Kathy Wagner assumes some of the duties formerly performed by Jan Madrano.
Additions to Admissions since last summer include Mia Adams, front counter receptionist; Meg Graf, applications processor; Suzanne Hanson, phone receptionist; Kevin Sears, Patricia Lopez and Zanne Miller, assistant directors of admissions; Peter Briggs, assistant director of international admissions; and Randy Hernandez, senior assistant director of admissions.
Cathy Edwards joined the Registrar's Office March 2 as a new assistant registrar.
At Academic Advising and Student Services, Tami Hawkins is an academic adviser, and Holly Vance has joined the administrative support section.
In Print/On Display
Ohio University Press has published "Indio None," a short story by Candy Davis, Public Safety, in the anthology, Quarter After Eight (1997).
Bradley Butterfield, Comparative Literature GTF, will publish "Aestheticism, Ethics, Baudrillard and the `Crash' Controversy" in the January 1999 PMLA, Publication of the Modern Language Association.
On the podium/stage
Seventeen faculty members gave presentations to the UO Learning in Retirement program during summer and fall of 1997. They are James E. Brau and Robert Zimmerman, Physics; Joseph Fracchia, Honors College; Linda Fuller, Sociology, and Benton Johnson, Sociology emeritus; Thelma Greenfield, English emerita; N. Ray Hawk, Administration emeritus; David Luebke, John McCole and George Sheridan, History; A. Dean McKenzie, Art History emeritus; Alexander Murphy, Geography; Karla Schultz, German; Marian Smith, Victor Steinhardt and Milagro Vargas, Music, and Stephen Stone, Music emeritus.