Introduction of Awardee by Senate President Randy Sullivan:
The UO Senate Shared Governance, Transparency, and Trust Award was created on January 21, 2015. It represents the senate’s interest in encouraging the proliferation of trust, transparency, and shared governance with the university administration.This award is presented annually to the individual who has best exemplified the values of trust, transparency, and shared governance in the past year.
The Senate Executive Committee collected and screened the nominees and recommended this year’s recipient to the University Senate. The senate has confirmed the executive committee’s choice. I am pleased to announce that winner of the UO Senate Shared Governance, Transparency, and Trust Award for the 2015-2016 academic year is William T. Harbaugh, President-Elect of the University Senate and Professor of Economics.
During the past year, while he has served as senate vice-president, Bill has been a tireless advocate for full faculty and senate participation in governance, most particularly as it affects the core academic mission of the university. He has worked for enhanced participation of representative faculty on the hiring committees of academic administrators and to ensure that the Senate Budget Committee will play a meaningful role as the university considers adapting the budget model to changing conditions.
Bill’s dedication to transparency is legendary. Through numerous requests for public information, often through the formal public records request process and often at his own expense, he has provided the community with information that it needs to make informed decisions about their public university.
The word trust frequently evokes a warm, fuzzy feeling and I don’t think anybody has ever accused Bill of being warm and fuzzy. But there is an element of public trust that must at times be cold and hard, insisting on competence and accountability in the administration and operation of our public institutions. Sharing a private trust with an individual will frequently win you friends; advocating for the public trust is almost guaranteed to make some enemies. Throughout this year, and indeed as long as I have known him, Bill has been a champion of the public trust.
Therefore, it is my distinct honor and particular pleasure to present the 2015-2016 University of Oregon Senate Shared Governance, Transparency, and Trust Award to Professor William T. Harbaugh.
Remarks by Bill Harbaugh:
I convinced the Senate to create this award in 2014, and now I’m the second person to get it. And in case that doesn’t sound self-serving enough, I have to admit that the idea for this award came from my mother.
Sort of. As a life-long member of the League of Women Voters, advocate for the cause of good government, and proud government bureaucrat, my mother understood my frustrations about the difficulty in getting public records from UO.
She suggested I create an annual booby prize award, to be given to the UO administrator who had done the least to promote trust, transparency and shared governance.
My Mom had an edge. But despite her advice, my motion asked the Senate to create an annual award for the person who had done the most for these causes, with a preference that it go to a senior administrator. And I’m confident that someday the Senate will find an administrator who deserves it.