Good afternoon and thank you Alison and Taliek for your remarks.
As we begin a new term together, perhaps we can return to the theme of interconnectedness around which my remarks at our last meeting of the Winter term were organized. Perhaps we can return, today, early in this new spring term to that poem Gwendolyn Brooks wrote about Paul Robeson:
we are each other’s harvest,
we are each other’s business,
we are each other’s
magnitude and bond.
I am grateful...for the members of our university community who spent hours and days over spring break, and in the weeks and months before, on both sides of the bargaining table, painstakingly working through differences and frustrations;
I am grateful ... for the faculty leaders in and out of this room who were willing to lend their voices towards reconciliation so that we could find a path forward together;
And I am grateful ... for everyone, on both sides of the debate, who recognized that striving to avoid a strike, particularly in the current environment, was in the best interests of us all.
As we worked through the late hours on that last weekend of spring break, moving closer to a deal, I felt the magnitude of the bonds that connect us, the shared interests of our common business.
This resolution marks more than an agreement — it signals a transition from a season of discord toward one of renewal and growing trust. And I recognize that this process has demonstrated that we have a lot to do to rebuild trust. I am committed to working with United Academics and the University Senate to reflect on the lessons from this round of negotiations and to create the relationships that we will need to undertake a more interest-based approach to bargaining in the future.
The uncertainty and anxiety of the last few weeks of bargaining were amplified and made more acute by the ongoing attacks by the federal administration on higher education as an endeavor.
This administration is shredding the long-standing compact between universities and the federal government that has provided billions of dollars in research funding since WW2 to the nation’s leading universities to establish the United States as a global leader in science, technology, the humanities, and the arts.
Research
Critical funding to the University Oregon from federal agencies that make up the majority of our research portfolio is under threat. The actions to shutter the US Department of Education are severely impacting our College of Education with major funding programs being cancelled.
We have begun to receive notifications of terminations from the National Institutes of Health and National Endowment for the Humanities and expect future actions from National Science Foundation and National Endowment for the Arts.
To date, roughly 15 grants have been terminated totaling $3.8 million in funding. However, the situation remains volatile, with grants being unterminated, re-terminated, then re-unterminated in the span of a week.
Students Visas
The administration is going after higher ed in other ways, as well, including revoking international student visas without warning or explanation. At least 1,000 students at more than a dozen institutions, including four of our own students, have already been targeted.
Please know that the staff who support international students within the Division of Global Engagement have been working directly with our impacted students. We are connecting them to all our advising and support resources, informing them of options for legal representation, while doing all we can to protect their privacy.
I want to personally thank Becky Crabtree, Director of International Student Services, who has been working tirelessly to support our students at this difficult time.
Diversity Equity and Inclusion
The administration is also trying to dismantle the important work universities are doing to advance diversity, equity and inclusion. I am sure you are all aware of the University of Michigan’s decision late last month to shutter its DEI offices. I want to allay your concerns, as much as I can, as it pertains to the University of Oregon. Our programs are aligned with the core values of our university, and Karl and I have been clear that we will not engage in anticipatory obedience.
In such moments of uncertainty and fear, I return to the scholarship that has long shaped my own work and given my leadership approach its purpose and direction. In this case, the words of Audre Lorde in her essay, Lessons from the ‘60’s, return to me. She writes:
Within each one of us there is some piece of humanness that knows we are not being served by the machine which orchestrates crisis after crisis and is grinding all our futures into dust
And later in the essay, she goes on:
What we must do is commit ourselves to some future that can include each other and to work toward that future with the particular strength of our individual identities. And in order to do this, we must allow each other our differences at the same time as we recognize our sameness
We know that there is no excellence in research or teaching without diversity. Different backgrounds, different life experiences, and different perspectives make the questions that shape our research more textured, deeper, and more effective as we work together to redress the grand challenges of our time.
Our teaching is enriched when our classrooms include a wide diversity of perspectives and positions, identities and backgrounds as we create learning environments in which everyone can deepen their understanding of the complex world in which we live. Our commitment to diversity remains steadfast; for it lies at the very heart of our research and learning mission. That will not change.
If our futures are not to be ground into dust, we will need to cultivate solidarity across the entire university community, between students, staff, faculty, and administrators.
We will need to strengthen the magnitude of the bonds that connect us. We will need to deepen our understanding of one another and of the complex forces pressing upon the university from all directions. We will need to continue to work on our relationships with each other, because we will need to defend and protect the university as a sacred place of inquiry and learning.
As always, I am grateful to be doing this work with all of you.
Thank you.