Letter from UO President Frohnmayer to the UO Community March 25, 2004

March 25, 2004

Dear Colleagues:

As I write the final draft of this letter, the early return of spring weather has brought daffodils, flowering cherry trees and the annual promise of regeneration. The intermittent return of clouds in no way diminishes two fabulous basketball games in Mac Court, fitting tributes both to Luke Jackson and his teammates.

As you read this, I am in Hong Kong and soon will be in Japan. My itinerary includes (1) visits with countless enthusiastic alumni who recall their days with us with heartwarming fondness; (2) a symposium with the major university presidents of China in which I moderate a panel on information technology uses for the 21st-century university; and (3) student recruitment receptions where I speak about the commendation recently awarded us by the American Council on Education for the breadth and quality of internationalization in our undergraduate programs. While the distances on this trip are too great for a traveler's physical comfort, they are a necessary and, indeed, vital part of our commitment to global involvement and awareness. I will continue to honor this commitment in several more months at the next meeting of the Association of Pacific Rim Universities - a group of 35 leading research universities of which we were a co-founder nearly eight years ago. In spite of the recent incidents of terror in Madrid and elsewhere, and the bureaucratic barriers of new immigration visa restrictions, our commitment to and our student and faculty engagement with international education remains strong and vibrant.

I am very pleased with the most impressive showing of our Department of Marketing in recent rankings and equally pleased with recent news about our fund-raising successes. As I am sure you noted, we just received a lead gift of $10 million from the HEDCO Foundation for our College of Education building project. And we will have soon very good news of continuing progress in endowing scholarship assistance for needy students. Both of these projects are central to the Campaign in which so many of you are involved. We will be announcing the "public phase" of that Campaign next school year.

On the campus, we have just broken ground for the Many Nations Longhouse and the Museum of Art will soon begin moving its collections back into a renovated facility stunning in both its beauty and its usefulness. We will soon be welcoming a new dean of the Lundquist College of Business and a new Living-Learning Center will help us remain competitive for new generations of students. Our long range campus plan for the east campus area has been approved with accolades by the city and our new Child Care Center is about to open - a light, airy expression of a wonderful commitment to the youngest generation.

We have also had very good news for those who participate in the Optional Retirement Program. An earlier decision, not of our making, had resulted in a decrease in the "employer contribution" the university had been able make to ORP accounts. OUS has now received legal advice that permits us to restore the rate to what it had been. For people in Tier 1 and Tier 2, we will be able to make retroactive adjustments. Many people worked hard on this issue, including the Interinstitutional Faculty Senate and staff in our Office of Human Resources, as well as staff in OUS.

Spring term will likely see a continuation of frenetic activity by many of us on behalf of the new OUS Board, including as yet incompletely defined but helpful efforts to widen the opportunities for achievement of college degrees. The board and the governor are focused and committed to halting the disinvestment in higher education. We are on a very fast track because of next year's legislative session; we are being asked to develop legislative packages no later than June.

While there is much to be optimistic about, these are very difficult times economically for countless people and I want to thank everyone for their forbearance and good spirit. We are doing our best to deal with the salary freeze by finding opportunities for professional growth, training, and additional institutional service. I find it a matter of personal pride that - in spite of the economic hardships facing many of us - we have, for the second year in a row, raised in excess of 100,000 pounds of food for the hungry in Lane County and will receive a state-wide award for the most outstanding effort to combat hunger of any state entity.

My thanks to all who participated and gave so selflessly. And my thanks for all the other things each of you do every day for our students and for your colleagues. As always, please feel free to write to me at any time, pres@uoregon.edu.

Warmest personal regards,

Dave Frohnmayer President