It was the school year’s first University Senate meeting, and incoming president James Earl was somewhat relieved afterward to call it “quick and easy.”
Following the heated, and sometimes contentious, debates over the Worker Rights Consortium last year, the release of the senate’s three-member WRC review committee’s report caused little comment during Wednesday’s meeting in Grayson Hall.
The recommendations of the report were the most pressing business of the meeting, which also involved a provost report on the Central Oregon branch campus, the election of the senate vice president and a vote on minor adjustments to the student conduct code.
After a brief speech by Greg McLauchlan of the sociology department about state measures 91, 93, 8 and 7, and their possible impacts on state funding for higher education, the senate’s attention turned to the report by the WRC review committee.
David Frank, the review committee chair and associate professor of the Clark Honors College, said the committee spent the summer writing the report in a “process as extensive and inclusive as possible.”
He said the committee spoke with students, faculty, Nike representatives and read hundreds of books and articles on the issue. Frank said the group came to the conclusion that “both the WRC and the Fair Labor Association are both potentially viable monitoring agencies worthy of our allegiance.”
Despite its conclusion, however, members of the committee also admitted that they could not give a report as detailed as the issue warranted and recommended to expand the review committee.
“We were looking at complex international economic issues and we were woefully underqualified to do that,” committee member Ann Tedards said, explaining the need for more deliberation and research.
Three faculty members and four students will join the new committee that will become part of the of the Senate Ad hoc Committee on Trademark Licensees and Monitoring.
University provost John Moseley talked about the Oregon University System’s plans to open a branch office in Bend. He said a consulting agency completed a report on the idea for the OUS and concluded it would cost approximately $7.2 million every two years to open the branch office.
Moseley told the senate a branch office in Bend could enlarge the University’s recruitment “arsenal” and if the University failed to make a strong effort for the branch office it would only hurt its own image.
“We’d be further viewed as the ivory tower in Eugene,” he said.
A steering committee is currently drafting a proposal for the branch office, which Moseley said will be submitted to the OUS by Dec. 1. He said the University has a good chance in beating out Oregon State University, which is its only competition at this time in the race for the branch office.
“We’re in quite good shape in regards to getting a proposal out and getting it approved,” he said.
Biology professor Nathan Tublitz told Moseley that if he came back to the senate meeting in November with a more detailed version of the proposal he would likely garner the senate’s support of the proposal.
Directly after Moseley’s speech the senate held a vote for vice president and Tublitz beat out physics Professor James Schombert, 20 to 10, for the office. Following the election, the senate voted unanimously in support of two minor changes to the student conduct code. The first reduced the number of law students required on the student hearing board and the second was to add the term “educational activity” to describe discipline requirements that include writing papers or attending classes.