MEMORANDUM

TO: University of Oregon Faculty

FROM: C.R.B. Wright

ABOUT: More on the Productivity Planning Front

A lot has happened since last I wrote. The productivity working groups, all nine of them, have begun to analyze their assigned topics and have already submitted reports of their preliminary conclusions to the steering committee. Those reports are now available on DuckScoop (the local Gopher) in the directory Administration/Productivity Planning. We aim to put copies of other reports and memos in that directory as they become available. In particular, you will find the Progress Report to the Chancellor there in the next week or so.

All of these materials will form part of the background for departmental productivity discussions in January, when the faculty as a whole will get the chance to see what sorts of ideas are likely to become part of the University's official productivity plan. That will be the time for us to pick through the pile to see which ideas make sense in our departments and which could fit with a little alteration. I invite you to spend a little time over the break looking at the committee reports and the progress report itself, so you can begin thinking of how you and your colleagues can respond best. There won't be a lot of time later on for the kind of thoughtful analysis we would like to do, since the final report is due in to the Chancellor in March. Instruction for getting at these materials are on the next page.

The university as a whole is going to be doing business quite differently a few years from now, whether we want to or not. Some of the ideas suggested in the reports are rather different from our traditional practices, and for that reason alone should be looked at very carefully. Are they really in the university's best interests? How will they affect our students? How will we, as faculty members, be affected?

Several of the working groups independently suggested developing resource groups to help inexperienced faculty members try new technologies or new modes of instruction. As a first step in that direction, let me ask for your help in a quick survey. We would like to know who has some expertise and who would like to gain some. No commitments, but just some sense of how matters stand. Would you please quickly check any of the boxes on the next page that fit you, put your name on the sheet , tear it off, and mail it back to me, Charles Wright, Mathematics, by campus mail? Thanks. (Be sure to save the DuckScoop instructions if you need them.) Please mark the left box if you Know something about the topic, the right one if you would like to Learn about it, and both if you know but would like to learn more. We will keep track of responses so as to get people together later on. Topics are in no particular order of priority.

Mail to C.R.B. Wright, Mathematics or wright@math.uoregon.edu [Submitted by: Charley Wright
Sat, 11 Dec 93 16:13:40 PST] [Copyright 1993, University of Oregon]