The Oregon State Legislature has proposed the University of Oregon merge with Southern Oregon University as a means to save money during the coming biennium, a suggestion that has met with opposition here on campus and around the state.
Senate Bill 442 demands the Oregon State Board of Higher Education conduct research on the effects of merging the smaller Oregon University System schools with the larger ones by Nov. 1, 2010. The bill, sponsored by the Committee on Education and General Government, also declares a state of emergency in higher education in Oregon.
University Senior Vice President and Provost Jim Bean said the Senate has recommended SOU merge with UO and Eastern Oregon University merge with Oregon State University, and announced the suggestion Friday.
Bean said a similar study was conducted during summer 2008 and found the proposal to be impractical, but the state Senate believes it could reduce costs during the 2009-11 biennium, which will see huge budget cuts.
ASUO President Sam Dotters-Katz said he thinks matching SOU with UO and EOU with OSU makes sense as a cultural and academic match, but doubts the move will really save OUS money.
“A well-rounded feasibility study should be conducted because the spirit of the proposal is cost-savings,” Dotters-Katz said.
Students had doubts as well. Senior Nicole Webb said she thinks the move could work if SOU and UO remain separate campuses, much the way the UO’s Eugene and Portland campuses already are.
Junior Kelsie Jordan disagreed. She thought creating two separate campuses would cause both schools to lose a sense of identity and “home base.”
“Trying to keep sense of community would be hard,” she said.
Bean had similar concerns. Although SOU and the UO have cultures more similar than other OUS schools, he said, they still have distinct identities that contribute to students’ experiences at both.
Both Jordan and Webb saw financial drawbacks to the idea, especially if it brought more students to campus. Webb said the University would likely have to expand facilities and services to accommodate more students.
“I don’t think it would really end up saving money,” she said.
Jordan added that the University is already experiencing difficulty housing all of its freshmen on campus and funding student services.
Bean said the University is considering ways it could transition to a new model, such as asking some University-enrolled students to take SOU classes.
Jordan doubts that would work. “They’d have to do a significant amount of planning to make that feasible,” she said.
Jay Kenton, vice chancellor for finance in the Oregon University System, told legislators he also thought combining schools could end up costing more money. Research universities, such as this one, pay their faculty more than smaller schools such as SOU, he said, so if SOU became part of a larger research-based school, all of the SOU faculty salaries would likely have to increase.
Whatever the drawbacks and benefits, Bean said, the entire situation is still very tentative and nothing will be decided until after the state board offers its report in 2010.
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