From: Senate President <senatepres@uoregon.edu>
Subject: SENATE: Pedro Garcia-Caro and Frances White elected as CAS TF nominees by acclamation
Date: October 31, 2018 at 2:40:52 PM PDT

Dear Senators –

We had two self-nominations for the two Senate nominees for the task force on the potential CAS reorganization:

1) Pedro Garcia-Caro (Romance Languages):

I have served as a senator representing the Humanities Division of the College of Arts and Sciences for six years (2011-2014 and 2016-2018) and have often voiced my concerns for the increasing marginalization of languages, general education, the liberal arts and the humanities on our campus. As Secretary of AAUP-Oregon I have written in our local newsletter on the challenges faced by the Liberal  Arts in our current political and economic setting as well as on the role of private interests and donors in a Public University (2018). I am not completely attached to the current college configuration, for instance, I don’t think it has fomented well interdisciplinary programs, and research experiences to their full potential. This will continue to be a key challenging issue that might not be best resolved with a new division of colleges and which may be tied to the larger budgetary issues that have plagued our campus for years. Being part of this task force I will actively interrogate these different models and take part in the discussion of key details related to the way in which a reorganized college or set of new collegial organizations might best contribute to enhance disciplinary and interdisciplinary experiences in particular across the Social Sciences and the Humanities, the areas where I locate my own research as a cultural historian working on Latin America.

2) Frances White (Anthropology):

As a member of a highly interdisciplinary department and intellectual area, I am deeply concerned about the impact these discussions and decisions has on interdisciplinarity both the faculty research perspective and, from my positions on the various academic committees and councils, on the undergraduate student and graduate student experiences in interdisciplinary courses and programs.

Frances and Pedro are therefore elected by acclamation, and the Senator leadership hereby passes their names on to the Provost as the Senate’s nominees. Thanks to them both for their work supporting shared governance on this important task force.

I encourage all Senators to work with their constituents and Provost Banavar to help find nominees for the remaining task force openings.

Bill Harbaugh
UO Senate Pres, Econ Prof
http://senate.uoregon.edu

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From: Senate President <senatepres@uoregon.edu>
Sent: Monday, October 29, 2018 10:08 AM
Subject: RESPONSE NEEDED, SENATE CAS Caucus : Call for nominations for appointments to task force on the potential CAS reorganization

Dear CAS Senators –

As you know, President Schill and Provost Banavar are convening a task force, chaired by Assoc CAS Dean Karen Ford, to advise them on the potential reorganization of CAS into several colleges. The details of this are at https://provost.uoregon.edu/task-force-structure-college-arts-and-sciences.

The charge says that

“At least two of the CAS faculty members shall be selected from names nominated by the president and vice president of the University Senate. ”

Senate VP Elizabeth Skowron has decided to recuse herself this from because she is not CAS faculty, so Chris Sinclair as Immediate past Senate president and I have decided on the following process to select nominees. (Neither Chris nor myself are interested in being on the task force, given our other obligations.)

1) Alll interested CAS faculty senators (I.e. the members of the CAS Caucus) can self-nominate by emailing me at senatepres@uoregon.edu, along with an optional <250 word statement about why you would like to serve on the task force. This is due by midnight this Tuesday, Oct 30. 

2) On Wednesday Oct 31st I will email all CAS Caucus members the names and statements of the nominees. The Senate staff will then collect votes by email, due by 5PM Friday Nov 2nd. Each CAS faculty senator can vote for up to two nominees.

We will forward the names of the top two vote-getters to Karen Ford as the Senate nominees for task force membership. This process will ensure that there are at least 2 CAS Senators among the 20 task force members.

I will also forward the names, statements, and number of votes for all those submitting self-nominations, in the hope that the administration will find that information useful in picking the remaining 7 CAS faculty members.

The task force’s charge also includes a timeline saying that the task force is to make a report by April 15, and that the President and Provost will make the decision in Mid-May, for discussion at the June 3-4 Trustees meeting and a likely announcement date. This process does not include a Senate for. Our feeling is that any decision to reorganize CAS departments into new colleges is a significant academic matter that will require Senate approval, and we will take up the question as to how to best do this in the Senate soon, so I’m sending this message to all Senators for information, but at the moment it only requires action from Senators representing CAS divisions, i.e. those on the CAS Caucus.

Thanks,

Bill Harbaugh
Economics Prof & Senate Pres
University of Oregon
http://senate.uoregon.edu