Letter from UO President Frohnmayer to the UO Community March 2005

March 2005

Dear Colleagues:

I write with fresh memories of a winter term that concluded with radiant sunshine, blossoming trees, and warm breezes flowing over one of our nation's most beautiful campus settings. We will long remember the sight of classes meeting outdoors on our inviting lawnsÑin February! I dare to wonder whether substantive course content truly can be mastered in such wonderfully distracting settings. But I have confidence that somehow the total learning experience has been invigorated by this unprecedented gift. As I write, the Ways and Means Subcommittee on Education has finished the first round of hearings on the Oregon University System budget. The hearings, punctuated by institutional success stories, offered the touching personal journeys of students and presented a deep concern about adequate financial rewards for our faculty and staff. The legislative reactions have been overwhelmingly positive, though mitigated with the usual cautious hesitation about the adequacy of total state resources to meet all of Oregon's pressing needs. In the first weeks of April the publication of the proposed budget of the Ways and Means co-chairs will send a major signal about our likely prospects. Happily the March revenue forecast was positive, bolstered by $200 million of unexpected but welcome revenue growth. The Oregon Supreme Court's split decision on the PERS reform legislation appears to be without an immediate fiscal impact. Consequently, the worst pressures to cut back further from the governor's proposed budget have subsided noticeably. The status of tuition proposals, so important to our students and, unfortunately, to our total revenue stream, is still uncertain. While we are deeply sympathetic with the desire of our students to see a tuition "freeze," the cost in new dollars beyond the governor's budget for the system to absorb this revenue loss is $32 million. This amount currently seems unattainable without a reduction in the welcome proposal of the governor to double the money available for the Oregon Assistance Grants. It is a sad truth that politics so often presents choices between evils. The legislature also has considered two measures that, as introduced, would require common course numberings among OUS and community college offerings, especially at the lower-division level. We have testified against the unintended effects of these measures and share the deep disquiet of faculty members who have examined them and their implications for the quality of our undergraduate curriculum. At the same time we have moved vigorously over the past months to address the real underlying problem, which is the perceived inability of students to transfer readily and economically between institutions that offer undergraduate credit. We believe that without common course numbering we can better preserve undergraduate instructional quality at this institution while still offering the most efficient means to transfer credits and allow students to graduate in a timely manner. This past term has provided us many occasions to appreciate the quality of our faculty. Perhaps the most spectacular occasion was the Campaign Gala on

January 29 at the Moshofsky Center, which was transformed wonderfully into a glittering awards pavilion that highlighted faculty achievement. It was heartening to see such achievement presented so impressively to an external audience, as well as to see the splendid and flattering portraits on the faculty "Wall of Fame." We heard touching tributes to the scholarship and discovery that are so central to our lives together. An equal note of pride at this stage of the campaign is the large number of faculty and emeritus faculty members who themselves have made major philanthropic contributions, demonstrating their faith in the future of this university. Let this be one of many occasions on which we salute the selfless efforts of our colleagues in making this campaign such a success, moving it to its half-way point on target. Across our campus, as in the world to which we offer learning and leadership, challenges and opportunities are ever present. We continue our efforts to invite and welcome diversity on our campus. Indeed, the very basis of what we are as an educational institution demands diversity. We must have it, not only in ideas and intellectual offerings but also in people and all the richness and experience they bring with them, in order to achieve our mission of learning and leadership. Within the past few months we have seen the re-opening of two museums on our campus: the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art and the remodeled Museum of Natural and Cultural History. Each in its own way connects us with those qualities beyond our daily lives, with a past that has made us who we are today and with art that reflects our deepest aspirations as well as our most creative natures. In addition, the groundbreaking for the new Living-Learning Center is the first step of a phased plan to renovate or replace our out-of-date residence hall housing, creating a space where education is experienced as an exciting and integral part of life. The quality of our faculty continues to be recognized, not only on our campus but also by peers internationally, as chemistry Professor Geri Richmond recently became the first woman to win the Spiers Medal, one of the most prestigious international prizes in chemistry.

As we share achievement, so we also share loss. On March 7, PPPM Associate Professor John Baldwin died after a short illness. John, who was the founding director of the university's Environmental Studies Program, lived out in all of his life that rare ability to bring both human passion and academic excellence to his teaching and research. He made a difference for the better.

It is a difference we all aim for in our campus community, and one I see as a unique quality of all our efforts here. The weather may change. This is OregonÑit will. But I remain confident and grateful for the unchanging commitment from each of you as we continue to make the University of Oregon a site of excellence, recognized today and felt for generations to come.

As always, I would be pleased to hear from you. My e-mail address is pres@uoregon.edu.

Warmest regards,

Dave Frohnmayer President