Good afternoon colleagues,
Thank you, President Mason and Senator Gill for your updates.
Already early this morning, my wife, Val, who works as an English as a Second Language Instructor at Plaza de Nuestra Communidad, was texting me about the presence of immigration officials in our local communities today. Aggressive immigration enforcement is creating real worry and uncertainty on our campus and in our community. I am grateful to Jessica for taking the time to be here and for the thoughtful and caring guidance she provided.
Let me begin this afternoon with the words of the author and educator bell hooks, which speak to something vital in the mission of our university:
“Educating is always a vocation rooted in hopefulness,” she writes. “As teachers we believe that learning is possible, that nothing can keep an open mind from seeking after knowledge and finding a way to know.” (Teaching Community: A Pedagogy of Hope)
Thank you...each of you, for the role you play in seeking knowledge, in finding new ways to know—even and especially now, when the whole world seems intent on finding ways not to know.
****
Today, the Senate will consider the creation of three new academic programs. After the major budget cuts we’ve faced in recent months, we have heard concerns about launching any new academic programs in the current climate, and about potential areas of overlap between the proposed programs and existing academic offerings here at the University of Oregon.
These are fair questions and part of a robust process of consultation, so let me offer two responses. First, even in challenging moments — maybe even especially in challenging moments — we cannot allow a deficit mindset to take root.
A university that stops evolving begins to wither. To continue leading through this period of intense disruption in higher education, we need creativity, imagination, and an enduring focus on the things that matter most. That’s why we are committed to moving from planning to action on our Oregon Rising goals this year, and why we decided to not impose a hiring freeze—we still need to do some hiring in a small number of strategic areas.
And it’s also why we must continue to align our academic offerings with the shifting interests, needs, and aspirations of our students. Developing strong, relevant programs that attract students and generate sustainable revenue is essential to our future.
Second, no academic program arrives before you without considerable research, deliberation, and consultation. Each proposal is generated by faculty and then moved through a rigorous process:
- Assessment of market demand and financial viability by school and college leadership and my office;
- Review by the Provost Council, so that all our Deans are aware of proposals and can flag potential conflicts with existing programs;
- Academic review by faculty-led curriculum committees and the graduate council;
- Independent financial analyses by the Vice President of Finance and Administration.
- And a review by the Senate Executive Committee.
Only after navigating these gates does a program arrive here for your consideration. Today, you will discuss three programs: a new Bachelor’s of Education in Child Behavioral Health; a new Master’s in Cybersecurity; and the Master’s in Data Science, which the Senate first discussed last month.
As you will hear from the faculty and leaders behind these proposals, they can be launched with minimal new costs or hiring; they reflect sound academic judgment; and they open real opportunities for new revenue. They have been proposed to expand our student body, not simply reshuffle the students we already have. From my perspective, these new programs all represent thoughtful next steps — they are forward-looking, student-centered, and responsive to the evolving landscape of higher education, as well as industry needs.
****
Finally, I want to touch briefly on our new UO Elements system that Hal Sadofsky will be presenting to you later in this meeting. Now, I have been part of rolling out new systems like this at two other Big Ten institutions; and each time, no matter how careful the planning, it has been painful. The pain stems not only from the fact that we are changing the ways we have done things, and such changes are always difficult, but also because the change involves the very work that gives our academic life its depth and meaning.
But this is just what makes the implementation of this system so important, because it empowers us to more effectively curate and organize the teaching and research activities that animate the life of the university. Although the ability to more effectively manage reviews and promotions is a part of what we are building here – and today you’ll hear more about that, we cannot lose sight of our broader purpose: to enable us to make our work more legible to one another and to the world so badly in need of the teaching and research we do.
The implementation of Elements opens an opportunity for us to strengthen our scholarly community by intentionally curating our online scholarly presence — not just tracking its outputs. In my own academic life, I have long committed to using digital tools and platforms to create communities of interest and practice around the issues most dear to me, first around my philosophical work, and increasingly over time around efforts to transform and renew higher education. When I speak with faculty and students about developing a public scholarly presence, I often hear hesitation. But let me speak directly from experience, new opportunities have opened for me—invitations to keynote at conferences, to contribute to edited collections and special issues of journals, indeed, most of my sponsored research has been made possible by the community of scholars who engaged my work first through my online scholarly presence.
A vibrant and well-connected academic community doesn’t emerge by accident — it takes infrastructure, clarity of purpose, and intentional effort. This is at the core of our launch of Elements, and it also leads me to this call to action: if you have not already done so, I encourage you to make sure you have an ORCiD ID and that it is linked to UO with single sign-in. Your librarian can help with this if you have any questions. Here is the link: https://orcid.org/
****
Let me conclude by returning to bell hooks, who writes: “My hope emerges from those places of struggle where I witness individuals positively transforming their lives and the world around them.”
Education is rooted in that hopefulness, and I am grateful to be working with each of you to actualize the spirit of that hopefulness in our classrooms and our studios and our labs and in the wide diversity of communities enriched by the good work of this university.
Thank you.