From: UO Senate President <senatepres@uoregon.edu>
Subject: DEADLINE Feb 28: Nomination and review process for the new faculty member of the UO Board of Trustees
Date: February 13, 2017 at 2:24:35 PM PST
Dear UO Statutory Faculty Members –
The current Faculty Trustee on the UO Board of Trustees – Susan Gary (Law) – will be completing her term of office on June 30. Sometime between now and then Governor Kate Brown will appoint another member of the statutory faculty to take her place. The Oregon Senate then confirms (almost always) the appointment. The Faculty Trustee is a voting member of the UO Board, by the Governor’s decision, and we expect that to continue given the Governor’s support for shared governance.
The Faculty Trustee is not appointed to promote the faculty’s interests, rather they share the fiduciary responsibility to act in the broad best interests of the University that all our Trustees have. We believe that this requires that the faculty trustee be well informed about the university at large and the opinions of the faculty on important matters that come before the board, be able to effectively inform the rest of the board about those opinions, be able and willing to keep the faculty informed about the thinking and plans of the Board, and be selected with input and buy-in from the faculty – something that has not been done in the past.
So we’re writing to all UO Statutory Faculty to suggest that you learn more about the Board and consider submitting an application to the governor’s office and encourage colleagues who you think would do a good job for UO to also apply. The deadline to apply to the Governor’s office is Feb 28th, and as explained below the Board would prefer that the Faculty Trustee be from CAS, since the last one was from a professional school.
The rest of this email gives some info about university boards and the UO Board, explains how faculty can self-nominate for the Faculty Trustee position, and explains how the Senate will review nominations and make a recommendation to the Governor’s office.
Information on the Board:
The party line on the UO Board can be found at their website here http://trustees.uoregon.edu/ along with contact information. The Association of Governing Boards has a lot of information at https://www.agb.org/reports/topic/faculty-and-shared-governance. One recent AGB report, for example, is “Shared Governance: Is OK good enough?” at http://agb.org/sites/default/files/survey_2016_shared_governance.pdf You might also want to contact Susan Gary sgary@uoregon.edu or Board Secretary Angela Wilhelms at wilhelms@uoregon.edu.
Information on how to apply to the Governor’s Office:
As the Governor’s website says, “Applying for a Board is Easy!” Unfortunately their website is a bit slow: http://www.oregon.gov/gov/admin/Pages/How_To_Apply.aspx.
You will need to complete this form: http://www.oregon.gov/gov/admin/Documents/Interest%20Form%20.pdf and include a c.v., bio, and statement of interest. The application form is here: http://www.oregon.gov/gov/admin/Documents/Interest%20Form.pdf
The Board has posted this statement on the process: https://trustees.uoregon.edu/sites/trustees2.uoregon.edu/files/board_membership_considerations.pdf. It clarifies that the Board will not prohibit the Senate or other organizations from recommending candidates – which we appreciate – and will not make its own recommendation or allow individual trustees to advocate for or against prospective candidates. However they do reserve the right to:
“Provide information to the Governor’s executive appointments office about what demographics, skills and experiences will help maintain a well-rounded board in whole • Advocate for alternation between constituency types (e.g. classified/OA; professional school/CAS)”
Which we take to mean they would prefer this new trustee be from CAS, since Prof. Gary is from Law.
Information on how the Senate will provide input to the Governor:
We have contacted the governor’s office and they want input from the University Senate and the faculty about who would be a good Faculty Trustee.
After the deadline for applications closes on February 28th, they will send us a list of all applicants and their application materials. We will post these on the Senate website, and ask the nominees if they would like to provide any additional information, or answer emailed questions from faculty. We will then ask the statutory faculty members of the Senate to rank the nominees (with a Qualtrics poll) and we will provide the aggregate rankings to the Governor’s office. The Senate President and Vice President will consult with the Senate Executive Committee and provide the Governor’s office with our evaluation of the nominees – just as any other citizen may do.
Thanks very much for your assistance in helping ensure that we have a strong set of faculty applicants for the governor to consider when she fills the upcoming vacancy on our UO Board of Trustees!
Bill Harbaugh, Senate President & Professor of Economics
Chris Sinclair, Senate President Elect and Associate Professor of Mathematics
University of Oregon