University of Oregon’s president John Karl Scholz was selected on March 13 after having previously served as provost at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He officially started his term on July 1, taking over from former UO president Michael Schill, who is now president of Northwestern University.
On Oct. 26, UO Communications declined an interview with President Scholz.
“Thank you for the request, but we’d like to hold off on this one for now. Right now there wouldn’t be much more to say than was covered in the interview a few weeks ago,” Director of Issues Management Angela Seydel said in an email to the Emerald.
Student and labor organizations such as the Graduate Teaching Fellows Federation, UO Student Workers, Residence Hall Association, Students for Justice in Palestine and Oregon Hillel have had a busy start to the school year, hosting several rallies, sit-ins and protests since late September.
All of the aforementioned organizations state Scholz has lacked communication with students and faculty throughout his first term.
Graduate Teaching Fellows Federation
GTFF Vice President of External Relations Emily Beatty said in an email to the Daily Emerald that GTFF has been undergoing an authorized strike in response to UO’s failure to provide graduate employees with a living wage.
According to Emerald reporting, graduate employees are asking for approximately a 25 to 30% increase in wages by the beginning of next term as they are only allowed to work 19.5 to 20 hours per week.
GTFF President Leslie Selcer said that the organization arranged a meeting with Scholz back in August to discuss their concerns and priorities for the upcoming year.
“We saw this as potentially an opportunity for the university administration to shift some of their approaches,” Selcer said. “We wanted to sort of raise our concerns and things that we saw as being important to the future of the University of Oregon that we thought would be priorities for him.”
According to Selcer, she and the GTFF appreciated that Scholz made time to speak with them, but they also know he is not directly involved in the bargaining process.
“I would say things have not substantially shifted for the GTFF since he’s been in office,” Selcer said. “We know that he’s made a number of public statements of support, and in general, has supported labor organizations. We love those ideas. We would love to see them followed up with more concrete material changes.”
According to Selcer, what GTFF is hoping to see with the rest of the year under Scholz is a reversal of the corporatization that they feel has happened to UO in the last decade or so.
“I really think President Scholz has an incredible opportunity here to have his legacy be the president who turns UO around from this increasing corporatization and towards education as a mission,” Selcer said. “And on actually creating public access to institutions like UO rather than continuing down the pathway of increasing privatization.”
Selcer said that one of GTFF’s biggest concerns about Scholz’s leadership is his communication and future actions.
“He has done a lot of meetings with various campus entities to try and get a sense of what their concerns are,” Selcer said. “And really now it just remains to be seen. Were you just talking or are you going to follow through?” Are there going to be actual changes to how the UO administration handles these issues?”
GTFF said it would like to see actions behind the statements that Scholz has made rather than, according to Selcer, the “public PR role” that he is currently in. Selcer said that GTFF “really admire[s]” the fact that Scholz is publicly stating he supports workers on campus and supports a climate of respect toward workers and labor organizations on campus.
“He has stated that publicly multiple times and he’s personally told me this as well,” Selcer said. “So I think that’s a huge pro.”
UO Student Workers
UOSW has had a productive term so far stabilizing its unionization, according to Global Scholars Hall resident assistant Taliah Johnson.
UOSW’s certification for unionization was approved with a 97% acceptance rate with a 1,000-person turnout.
Johnson said that while UOSW has not had many interactions with Scholz, she believes it does plan to bargain in good faith.
“In my personal view, I don’t feel like he’s doing a great job with communicating on things,” Johnson said. “It’s like when there’s a crisis, there’s one email and that’s it. There’s nothing else to see.”
According to Johnson, one of Scholz’s main goals –– educational equity –– is seen as unattainable by her and the UOSW.
“If student workers cannot afford the basic needs of putting food on the table and paying rent, then that goal is unachievable,” Johnson said. “We also want to be able to get our researchers paid.”
According to Johnson, she believes that researchers should be paid more because one of Scholz’s goals is to expand research at UO, and Johnson believes that is not possible without increased pay for researchers.
Residence Hall Association
On Nov. 15, the RHA held a UO Onward Feedback Session with university administration to allow students to reflect on the past term with Scholz’s leadership.
UO Onward is a program developed by President Scholz and his team as a way to gather feedback and ideas toward UO’s strategic action plan through input sessions and distributed online surveys.
The UO Onward representative who spoke at the meeting expressed Scholz’s three main working goals and concerns for this upcoming year: “Student Learning and Achievement,” “Elevate our Outstanding Scholarship and Service” and “Campus Belonging.”
RHA member Justin Cala gave his input in response to Scholz’s objective of “leveraging UO’s reputation for excellence and innovation in athletics to elevate the whole university.”
“I’m curious with how that’s going to help people that aren’t working in athletics or are an athlete,” Cala said. “I feel like [UO] has been under pressure to move away from that in the past because they put so much money into athletics and have turned their backs on some of the scholar programs.”
RHA member Emma Watanabe also had concerns regarding student-athletes as opposed to students who are not.
“There is some sort of gap between our students in athletics versus our students within the university,” Watanabe said. “I feel like there is such a hierarchy between the two [groups], and I wish that there was some sort of way for these students who are not necessarily involved within athletics can get that same shine and attention that the students in athletics do.”
One of RHA member Aixa Gutierrez’s biggest concerns is the attainability of education and scholarships for more students from underprivileged communities at UO.
“When I was applying and looking at scholarships, UO and the state of Oregon is one of the schools that is not a part of the Western Undergraduate Exchange,” Gutierrez said. “I think it’s interesting because a lot of California, Utah and Arizona schools are all a part of it.”
The Western Undergraduate Exchange is an agreement in which 160+ public universities provide savings for tuition for students on the Western coast.
RHA member Max Jaimes also said that his biggest concern is related to underprivileged and low-income students being able to afford UO tuition.
“How will President Scholz help low-income students coming into the university? Especially those who deserve to go to university because of how smart they are, but they can’t afford it,” Jaimes said. “How is he going to change that to get them into college and bring up our graduation rates?”
RHA member Andrew Acevedo’s main concerns were in regard to Scholz and UO Onward’s “Campus Belonging” working goal.
“In what ways does UO want to create that culture where members can feel like they flourish?” Acevedo said. “I’m trying to look for an expansion on that goal.”
According to RHA member Yadira Romero-Navarro, culture, diversity, equity and inclusion are a huge concern for her with Scholz’s leadership.
“One of the biggest things that I would like to see is more support and retention for our Hispanic and Latino students,” Romero-Navarro said. “I just think UO takes a lot of pride in its diversity and it doesn’t give enough support to that diversity.”
Students for Justice in Palestine
The Israel-Hamas war has rapidly become one of the most contentious issues in American political discourse. The war has polarized and inspired activism on college campuses, including UO’s, which has seen numerous rallies, vigils and demonstrations pertaining to the war in recent weeks.
Culture, diversity, equity and inclusion are all important factors to UO’s SJP as well, according to Salem Khoury, co-director of the SJP.
There is a population of Israeli students and Palestinian students at UO, and both organizations have reflected on how Scholz has responded to the conflict personally with their organization and publicly.
“SJP on campus has been a really important thing, not just for Palestinian students such as myself, but also for people who haven’t heard much about what’s happening in the Middle East,” Khoury said. “I’ve had some great conversations with people who have been previously unaware of anything in regards to Palestine, much less Israel and Palestine.”
On Oct. 13, Scholz released a university-wide statement addressing the conflict in Israel and Gaza.
According to Khoury, SJP and many Palestinian students at UO did not feel like the statement addressed the Palestinian audience on campus.
“In the statement, he did not mention the word ‘Palestine’ which is, as we regarded, highly disrespectful and highly dismissive of the brutality happening right now,” Khoury said. “In regards to if he’s reached out or provided outreach or condolences, nothing. We have had zero contact with him.”
Khoury said that she and a member of the J Street U organization on campus arranged a meeting with Dean of Students Marcus Langford to discuss the statement and how they felt it left out Palestinian, Muslim and Middle Eastern groups on campus.
“We explained that there are multiple students on this campus that don’t feel safe because they didn’t make aware that they are safe or that the university cares about them,” Khoury said. “The Dean ended up giving me some really good resources but made it very clear that the possibility of the President releasing another statement is pretty much zero.”
According to Khoury, the SJP feels unaware of what Scholz stands for in relation to the Israel-Hamas conflict as well as unrelated to the conflict because they have not heard from him much this term.
“I feel like there hasn’t been a president,” Khoury said. “He hasn’t really done much. We brought to the general attention last week that President Scholz held off on the decision to become a Hispanic Serving Institution.”
A Hispanic Serving Institution is defined in Title V of the Higher Education Act as “an institution of higher learning with a full-time equivalent undergraduate student enrollment of at least 25% Hispanic.”
Khoury said that this hold-off has affected her and SJP’s stance on Scholz as well as his lack of recognition for the Palestinian community on campus.
“In the current news cycle, this is the biggest thing that’s happening, and he’s still been extremely silent,” Khoury said. “It’s in the interest of the SJP that he wouldn’t give a statement at all.”
Oregon Hillel
According to Oregon Hillel Executive Director Andy Gitelson –– the UO and Oregon State University chapter of Hillel International, a Jewish campus organization–– the Israel-Hamas war requires extra attention and leadership throughout all groups on campus.
“What’s happening between Israel and Hamas and Gaza has impacted [UO] a little bit differently than [other conflicts] I would say,” Gitelson said. “So I think that’s called for some additional leadership both from presidential and student affairs in upper administration. Those are the departments that are really under the President’s guidance.”
Gitelson sits on the President’s Diversity Advisory Council.
According to Gitelson, he and the council have experienced firsthand the communication he feels Scholz has in his leadership.
“We’ve been able to meet with him on a different level and work towards some of those goals that I know that he’s thinking about and starting to establish direction with,” Gitelson said. “Trying to look at how the university responds not only to our community but broadly to underrepresented communities.”
Gitelson said that he and Oregon Hillel feel that Scholz’s statement was a fair message to send to the community.
“I think the messaging has been positive on the whole. Certainly, there are some challenges when we talk about public institutions and free speech and freedom of assembly and how the university responds to that,” Gitelson said. “Those values are really important to us.”
According to Gitelson, he and Hillel are hoping to see more proactiveness in regards to anti-semitism as the year goes on.
“It would be great to see more proactiveness, especially within the idea of what’s happening with the rise of anti-Semitism across North American campuses right now,” Gitelson said. “It’s significant. Thankfully, we haven’t seen much in our backyard here at the University of Oregon, and I attribute our students to looking toward having healthy disagreements in differing on issues.”
Gitelson said one thing he would want to see from Scholz is an improvement on messages from the president that regard student life.
“It’s important to call out all of the ‘isms’ and all the different challenges that we deal with [in] regard to all of our various communities,” Gitelson said. “This has happened prior to President Scholz, as well, just periodically messaging out the type of community that we want to be and trying to provide that leadership not just to our students, but beyond.”
According to Gitelson, he and Hillel feel that UO has a strong DEI office under the jurisdiction of Vice President for Equity and Inclusion Dr. Yvette Alex-Assensoh.
“We’ve been committed to working with her team for years on the inclusion of Jews within the DEI context,” Gitelson said. “Providing education in and around anti-Semitism, Jewish hatred and inclusion of the Jewish community within the broader scope of DEI, and they’ve been great partners in that.”
Gitelson said that he feels that long-term, real commitment to the environment on campus by President Scholz is through the development and inclusion of broader messaging to the student body.
“To call out racism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, Islamophobia, transphobia in real time do not exhibit empathy, actions do,” Gitelson said. “We’ve created a community that’s not going to allow for those ideas to fester and live and I think that starts with leadership.”
