Students were expecting a decision on the UO thermal heating systems transition at the Board of Trustees meeting on Monday, March 11, but instead were surprised to hear about the recommendation delay.
Jack Dodson, community outreach coordinator for the Climate Justice League, said he expected a decision at the meeting because the task force listed the president’s decision on their timeline for winter 2024.
“This Board of Trustees meeting was supposed to be the one where [Scholz] made his final recommendation, and then the [board] could vote on which option they were going to implement,” Dodson said.
Ian Finn, finance director for Climate Justice League, said he and others expected a recommendation at the meeting and did not expect a delay in the process.
“We were obviously all expecting a decision to be made and it was quite disappointing when one wasn’t made,” Finn said.
According to an email statement by UO Spokesperson Angela Seydel, Scholz and the board need more time to examine the task force’s recommendation, given the scale of the impacts and potential investment of the university. Seydel said that Scholz will make a recommendation by winter 2025 at the latest.
Dodson said he and many others were “extremely disappointed that the university is delaying climate action.” However, they believe their rally before the meeting and speeches during the public comment session were beneficial regardless of the decision delay.
“We told the board and [Scholz] what the students wanted,” he said. “We showed up and we made student voices heard and they didn’t choose. We were worried they would copout and choose Option 2B, which doesn’t reduce greenhouse gas emissions enough, but they didn’t.”
Finn saw the delay and lack of decision as the board choosing Option 1, business as usual, because they did not take climate action. He also wondered if the university is committed to climate action.
“I don’t think the university has a legitimate commitment to climate action,” he said. “In reality, I think that they would prefer to not make a decision and instead just talk about making a decision.”
The delay will allow Scholz to consider more factors and receive information about the university’s finances for the next school year. Finn said CJL debated on whether the delay was good or not with them initially seeing the delay as beneficial to the university.
“Our initial impression was yes, it’s a good thing because [the board] wouldn’t make the wrong decision,” he said. “We see Option 2 as the wrong decision, so we didn’t want them to do that because it would be the weaker of the options, and it gives us more time to rally around Option 4 as an issue.”
Upon further discussion, Finn and CJL believe the delay is not beneficial for the university.
”The board is not delaying [the decision] because they want to take the right action, it’s because they don’t want to take any action,” he said. “The university looks good as long as they’re just putting in the work, if they’re ‘working on the process’, rather than actually implementing this system. Our concern is now that the university simply doesn’t want to do anything about our emissions.”
According to Seydel, the board is expected to hear updates from the task force about the heating system upgrade and carbon emission improvements. The open updates/presentations will be announced and listed on the agenda when scheduled.
