University President Richard Lariviere and the University Senate will be working together in the near future to remodel the way the state measures the success of its public universities.
At Wednesday’s University Senate meeting, Lariviere addressed the Senate, spending much of his time discussing the need to change the state’s higher education system, as well as the need for the University faculty to be involved in that process.
To this end, a joint committee between administration, faculty and other members of the University committee is being set up concerning state accountability metrics — the statistics used by the State Board of Higher Education to determine how well its institutions are performing.
Lariviere said he wanted the University to “collectively get in front of the issue.”
“I would like this faculty to come up with a set of metrics that will be meaningful to the average person and help them see how we’re doing,” Lariviere said.
A motion allowing University Senate President Peter Gilkey to appoint members to the committee was passed by a large majority of the Senate after several amendments to make the language more inclusive to other members of the University community.
The current discussion about the state’s higher education model was mainly spurred by former University president Dave Frohnmayer’s report, which called for giving each of Oregon’s three large research universities their own board of governance and making them public corporations. Lariviere called Frohnmayer’s report an “enormously useful document in bringing attention to the issue,” but said he believed it is necessary to have all seven of Oregon’s public universities involved.
“What’s clear is that we have to go in as a group of seven universities with a common agenda,” he said.
Also at the University Senate meeting, Vice President of Student Affairs Robin Holmes outlined the University’s ambitious “Oregon 2020” plan. Holmes said the plan, to be implemented over the next decade, calls for, among other things, replacing all of the University’s old residence halls by 2027 and completely renovating the EMU.
Holmes said the new spaces should be “pleasing to the 21st-century student.”
“You have to realize that what’s cool and groovy in 2006 to an 18 year-old is not cool and groovy in 2010,” she said.
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