Subject: Oregon Open Meetings Law and the UO Senate
To: grierm@uoregon.edu
Cc: gwens@uoregon.edu, hubin@uoregon.edu
From: Peter Gilkey
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 2009 10:40:27

Dear Melinda.

This is to confirm in writing our informal conversation yesterday during which you offered (as University General Counsel) to provide me (as President of the UO Senate) with an opinion concerning the degree to which the Oregon Open Public Meetings Law applies to the University of Oregon Senate. I accept your offer with gratitude as it would be very useful for me to have this information. And please cast the net widely -- if there are other related matters you think it might be useful to discuss.

Obviously this will touch on the degree to which the UO Senate is a decision making body. Certain of our actions clearly are decision making -- the most obvious being the approval of the curricular report each fall. Certain of our actions clearly are not decision making -- an exemplar being US 07/08-7 which simply endorsed "Focus the Nation: Global Warming Solutions for America". Similarly the "approval of degrees" each spring is not decision making since the State Board of Higher Education has final authority in this matter nor is the approval of the CoC report each spring since the appointments are actually made by the President's office. Some of our actions clearly lie in between - for example, tomorrow (14 October) the Senate will be asked to confirm a nomination by the Senate Nominating Committee to InterInstitutional Faculty Senate.

So I should be most grateful for any clarity you could bring to this. It would be nice to have this report by the 11 November 2009 UO Senate meeting -- I do, however, understand that there are other more pressing duties you must undertake.

Respectfully submitted

Peter B Gilkey
UO Senate President (2009/10)

p.s. absent objections to the contrary, this email will be posted on the UO Senate Website as I am trying to be as transparent this year as possible.