Dear Students, Staff, and Faculty,

Today, we celebrate the innumerable contributions of Oregon’s indigenous peoples. Oregon is celebrating its first official Indigenous Peoples’ Day subsequent to the passage of HB 2556 in May, 2021. This official recognition is long overdue.

As an educational institution, it is fitting for us to take this day to learn more about the contributions, victimization, resilience and strength of indigenous peoples. I recommend this article, a proclamation and a visit to our Museum of Natural and Cultural History today (see museum details below).

Personally, I offer our indigenous students, staff, and faculty my good wishes, gratitude for the many teachings they have shared with us, and commitment to serve them.

Warm regards,

Randy

Indigenous Peoples’ Day

 Monday, October 11 at 10:00am to 5:00pm

 Museum of Natural and Cultural History
1680 E 15th Avenue, Eugene, OR

Special Monday hours: The Museum of Natural and Cultural History will be open with FREE admission in honor of Indigenous Peoples’ Day! Come celebrate 14,000 years of Native culture in Oregon—from the First Americans at Paisley Caves to the dynamic cultures of today’s Tribes.

Dear Faculty and Staff,

I am writing this email without Dr. Julie Wren’s knowledge or consent, because she deserves our deepest gratitude and recognition for five years of leadership and toil that has led us to this week’s successful accreditation site visit. Good leader that she is, Julie is giving credit for this success to all of you. She, for example, crafted the note below for my signature.  I, too, am fully aware of every one of your contributions to this monumental task and am deeply grateful.

Five-plus years is a long time to stay the course when there are daily, sometimes hourly, challenges that could easily knock one off course. Julie, undaunted, never submitted to the challenges. We will never know whether or not we would have succeeded without her leadership. I submit, however, that If there is ever a need for an example of the importance of academic leadership, Julie is exemplar.

Nice work, Julie! On behalf of all of us, please accept A BIG THANK YOU!

Randy

View on browser: https://conta.cc/3bFkf1J

Click on image below to expand.

 

Dear Colleagues,

Many of you remember Tasia and her many contributions. The announcement of this gift in her honor brings mixed emotions – feelings of both joy at having known her and a deep sense of loss of her presence.

The link below will take you to today’s story in Around the O. All credit and gratitude goes to Kristi Schneider and our Development Team for this accomplishment.

https://around.uoregon.edu/content/gift-will-bost-diversity-uos-education-and-business-colleges.

Randy

Dear COE Students, Staff, and Faculty,

President Schill’s eloquent entreaty to vote: https://president.uoregon.edu/voting-resources-and-events-2020-election, respect one another, and make our voices heard is much appreciated. I add my voice to his.

I am similarly impressed by the voting and election-related resources provided for our university community: https://around.uoregon.edu/election2020. I encourage you to visit this site and scroll to the bottom to find the video entitled, The Lost Art of Argument: More Vital Than Ever This Election Season. The video features insights from students, staff and faculty from across campus, and our own Professor Lisa Mazzei. This piece also offers us a rare non-partisan educational opportunity in the midst of the onslaught of political advertisements, text messages, and unwelcome telephone solicitations. In addition, the content and concepts prepare us for the deliberations we will have going forward about creating a substantially more inclusive college.

It will be another week to engage in self-care. Some of you will need to rest, find some peace with nature, or find solace by reaching out to friends, colleagues, and family members. Others may need to take advantage of our university’s mental health resources. I also suggest that you find respite by offering one another some goodwill.

Finally, the election provides a reminder for us to stay committed to the work of making great strides toward inclusion, and to engage in the anti-racist actions required to achieve that goal. The frustrated efforts of Marian Wright Edelman (famed NAACP attorney and founder of the Children’s Defense Fund) serve as an example of the necessity for us to act with urgency this academic year. After seeing her child development legislative effort fail in 1971, she remarked, “…The country was tired of the concerns of the sixties. When you talked about poor people or black people, you faced a shrinking audience.” The remainder of this academic year will be our best opportunity to make the bold systemic changes required of us.

We are indeed privileged to be a part of this great institution and to be able to contribute to the field-leading work we are known for. The ways we use this privilege to remake ourselves as an inclusive institution will be our election year legacy. I look forward to joining you post-election season to co-create this future.

Take care,

Randy

June 18, 2020

Dear COE Community,

As we close this academic year, I will take a few moments to express my gratitude to our students, staff, and faculty. There are many actions and achievements for which I am immensely grateful.

For example.

I thank you for standing in solidarity with the African American community during a moment when allies are most needed.

Thank you for thriving in the new UO remote learning environment.

Thank you for challenging us to address racism forcefully, protesting peacefully, and initiating needed changes that promote justice.

Thank you for caring for others by respecting social distancing, wearing masks, and limiting your presence in our buildings.

Thank you for deploying digital mental health and educational innovations free of charge, or at drastically reduced cost, to support early childhood through high school student’s learning at home.

Thanks for embracing collegial moments; Donuts for Ducks comes to mind.

Thanks to our IT, student service coordinators, office managers, finance, operations, and all staff who helped us support faculty, staff, and students during our pivot to remote learning.

Thank you for launching the Social Systems Data Science Network and the Network for Equity in Educational Policy.

Thank you for honoring the lives and legacies of Professor Zig Engelmann and Dean Marty Kaufman.

At the same time, I want to acknowledge your impressive achievements this academic year amidst so much tumult. I offer just a few examples of your inspiring instructional, research, and service accomplishments.

Congratulations on your recognition as the highest-ranking academic unit at the UO, and among the top four Public COEs in the nation.

Congratulations to Stephanie Shire, Stephanie De Anda, and Ilana Umansky for receiving three prestigious early career grants.

Congratulations to the UOTeach program for achieving its highest enrollment in many years.

Congratulations to our communications team for reinvigorating our website.

Congratulations to the HEDCO Clinic faculty, staff, and students for improving more lives locally and throughout Oregon via tele health.

Congratulations to our development team for acquiring new student scholarships and a new endowed faculty professorship.

Congratulations to our Communications Disorders and Sciences colleagues for a successful accreditation review.

Congratulations to our many faculty who were promoted and/or granted tenure.

Finally, congratulations to our students who earned membership on the Dean’s List, and for their many other academic recognitions.

But, most of all, I am grateful for the adaptability, advocacy, generosity, and resolve you displayed this year.

I wish each of you well,

Randy

June 7, 2020

Dear COE Faculty and Staff,

It was a difficult week for many at the UO; undoubtedly a result of coping with too many challenges simultaneously. I saw more fatigue and short tempers than in all of my prior years on this campus. I share this observation because I think that we are all now developing a better understanding of the stresses, slights, aggression, marginalization and other ill experiences faced by members of the African American community every day, and the exhaustion these experiences cause. It is a time of teaching and learning about one another borne of the tragic murders of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor in rapid succession. The African American community knows too well that these recent murders were predictable based on the long history of racially fueled violence their community has endured.

My decades of concern for my African American alumni and colleagues has driven my press for our college to improve our commitment to, and actions toward creating a more inclusive, tolerant, diverse, and respectful college community. In addition, my treasured conversations with Congressman John Lewis, Tommy Smith, Michael Eric Dyson, Ela Gandhi and other social justice leaders drives me. With your leadership and collaboration, we have made strides toward hiring a more diverse faculty and staff – about 40% of all hires in the past five years and over 80% last year. The percentage of students of color enrolling in our graduate programs has also steadily increased from 20% in 2014 to 30% today. We have also developed a reputation on campus for diversity, equity, and inclusion leadership, and for placing women in leadership roles due to the work of Dr. Krista Chronister, Dr. Dianna Carrizales-Engelmann, and many others. This is progress, not success. There is much work to be done, and with more urgency.

We are at another inflection point, where we must do better, and by doing so also show respect for the lives lost, opportunities forbidden, and pain endured by the African American community. We can also show our respect by taking bold and unprecedented actions. We could take months or years to create new opportunities for our faculty to better serve Black children and youth, as well as other populations who have experienced brutality and oppression. We must accelerate our interventions.

Racism is supported by structures – laws, policies, and practices that maintain it. I have long thought that we are among the very few colleges of education in the country with research performance of adequate breadth and depth to have a powerful impact on the structures that facilitate the educational success and healthy development of Black children and youth, and to interfere with the structures that maintain inequities.

In order to achieve this goal, I am announcing the formation of a new college-wide, and university-wide collaborative of faculty that will adopt the mission of accelerating and scaling up the translation of our research for the purpose of improving local, regional, and national legislation and policies that impact children, youth, and families. With Dr. Ilana Umansky serving as convener, and Drs. Bertranna Muruthi and Lillian Durán as co-conveners, this group will create the framework for a new Network for Equity in Education Policy (NEEP). This initiative, modeled after our interdisciplinary Social Data Science Network (SDS Network), will allow our college and university faculty to coalesce around the common cause of educational and human sciences equity and justice. Some initial NEEP activities envisioned include:

• Training on how to write spin-off pieces from research products for policymakers
• Training for building relationships and joining networks that link research and policy
• Creating and promoting a digital library of policy briefs based on faculty’s translational research

The formation of NEEP will allow our college to better share our privilege for the benefit of Black children and youth who are routinely subjected to structural limitations – rooted in racism – that impede their development and rob them of opportunity.

I invite you, your colleagues, and your students to participate in this important work in the years to come.

More information about NEEP is forthcoming. Until then, try to take care of yourselves.

Randy

HEDCO 10th Anniversary Celebration, Speech to Donors

October 25, 2019–Tonight, we celebrate a decade of extraordinary achievements. And, because I have the best job in the world, I have had the distinct pleasure of watching these achievements play out for half of that decade. To be honest, I was not sure I wanted to join the UO if an offer was tendered. As some of you will recall, the moment of my hire in 2014 was a time of significant leadership churning and, well, bad press.

During my on-campus interview, however, I discovered that we had a unique resource that would drive our success – our donor community. I had interviewed for other positions that year, but my UO interview schedule was the only one that included a dinner meeting with advancement staff and a donor.  Amy Kari and Paul Elstone’s commitment, generosity, and good humor – accompanied by some great Oregon wine and food – convinced me that our college had unlimited upside potential. Three presidents and four provosts later, here I stand celebrating our success with you. Thanks, Amy and Paul!

It is most appropriate that we celebrate you, our university donors, who have laid key components in our foundation for academic excellence – this inspiring HEDCO building, and our renovated Lokey complex. However, this improved and updated physical space is just one foundational element of a field-leading academic unit like ours.

Our foundation for greatness has been built by decades of achievements by our faculty, hardworking and creative staff, and college leadership. The accomplishments of Ed Kame’enui serve as one example of our faculty leadership. He was one of only two academics to become a founding commissioner of the U.S. Department of Education’s research arm – the Institute of Education Sciences. Dean Emeritus, Marty Kaufman, whose life and legacy we celebrated two weeks ago, lifted our college from the virtual ashes of the Measure 5 budget cuts. And Mike Bullis, who is also with us this evening, led our college’s response to community concerns about our lack of inclusiveness and diversity, among other accomplishments. And, it is with deep gratitude and sorrow that we remember Andrea Wiggins’ contributions to our success. Truly, it is our people that make us great. But our people can only thrive with state-of-the-art physical infrastructure and financial supports to conduct the best research, outreach and instruction.

I want you to know that your support of endowed faculty professorships and chairs has allowed us to retain and recruit the best faculty in the country – 27 tenure-related faculty alone – during these past five years. You, our donors and university leaders, have ensured our future success by keeping our talented faculty in place long enough to achieve at the highest levels. Your donor funds have also allowed us to build out needed research space and to launch the HEDCO Clinic on a path toward achieving national stature and influence. Our expanded clinical services will allow us to put many more lives back on a favorable trajectory.

With the build out of our intellectual and physical plant foundation nearly complete, our future is assured. You may ask, what does that future look like? Some aspects of our future might be obvious, while others may surprise you.

First, our research leadership will continue to expand. We have more innovations in the marketplace than any of our peers – 40 plus – and more under development. The KinderTeK app is one example of a product under development by faculty.   This mathematics instruction app is proving effective for improving the achievement of early elementary grade children.

We also set another sponsored projects funding record this year, accounting for about 40% of the university’s total. We will make breakthroughs in fields ranging from preventing school disciplinary actions to improving school lunches. We will find new ways to improve children’s reading and mathematics skills and help youth recover more quickly from concussive head injuries.

Our service and outreach will soon be recognized as a co-equal contribution of our college to Oregon and the nation. We will better highlight the work of our Early Childhood Cares unit, which serves the specialized educational needs of all infants and preschoolers in Lane County. Yes, we are likely the only college of education in the country that runs our own school district. Thanks to our dedicated donors, the HEDCO Clinic has its first permanent Director, a position for a post-doctoral trainee, and an endowment that provides needed staffing. You may also not know that two of our outreach units provide the assessments needed to help high school students make career decisions in Oregon and across the nation. We are a service and outreach powerhouse. It’s about time that we told this story, which is why you will see more, and more effective, communication from our college, which will allow us to improve more lives.

Most importantly, our faculty are leading an unprecedented renewal of our curriculum. We have launched field-leading new academic programs in prevention science, and we are increasing student access by offering more on-line and remote access options for graduate students. By fall of 2020, we will initiate a fully on-line masters degree program for training Board-Certified Behavior Analysts (BCBAs) and we will have a specialization in educational data science. Our faculty have also led the creation of new curricula that enhances Oregon’s children’s understanding of, and appreciation for our native peoples. We are also improving our student’s experience in response to student surveys. These improvements in student access, success, and experience will increase student enrollment, and produce more alumni that will positively impact our society.

Finally, did you know that we are the leading producer of Ph.D. graduates at the UO? Yes, we graduate more doctoral alumni per tenure-related faculty member than any unit on campus – and by a large margin. Thus, we are having a profound impact on education and the human sciences nationally and internationally by producing the next generation of university and college faculty members.

I summarize our accelerating instructional, research, and service accomplishments as follows. We have been recognized for some time as a great college of education and we should be proud of that fact. However, because of our auspicious progress in instruction, research, and outreach, I believe that the final step on the achievement hierarchy – preeminence among our peers – is within reach.

There is no satisfaction to be had by not striving to be better, to do more, and consequently be considered the preeminent college of education. So, we push forward to break through to the highest tier of achievement. In the words of Nelson Mandela, “There is no passion to be found in playing small…”

Thank you, again, for all that you do for us. Go Ducks!

R.W. Kamphaus, PhD, Professor and Dean

Additional reading:

https://around.uoregon.edu/content/hedco-anniversary-marks-decade-innovation-and-service