Every month, faculty members from the University of Oregon’s different colleges are joined by student leaders, classified staff and administrators to discuss topics they deem important to the success of UO.
On March 11, these senators discussed open access for academic literature, test-optional admissions, a “historic” winter term curriculum and the effects of the coronavirus on teaching efforts.
Coronavirus Update from Provost Phillips
Provost Phillips joined the Senate just minutes after President Schill’s announcement for an update on the effect of COVID-19 on Spring term instruction.
Related: “No in-person finals winter term; first three weeks of spring term classes will be remote”
“I just want to recognize that we understand that this has broad impacts on everybody at this institution,” Phillips said. “Every single staff member, no matter who you are — classified staff, OAs (officers of administration), career faculty, tenured related faculty, even administrators — will be influenced by these actions and we are taking and we do not do them lightly. These are things we must do.”
This announcement to move spring term classes to remote instruction for the first three weeks was met with some opposition by faculty. Senators Kristen Yarris, Pedro García-Caro and Eileen Otis introduced a motion that would have given faculty an extra two weeks after spring break to transition to remote teaching. The motion would also recognize that remote classes would not be of adequate quality for students.
This motion was denied when opened up for a vote to the rest of the Senate.
The global COVID-19 pandemic is a quickly developing situation. Watch the Daily Emerald’s website for the latest coverage.
Open Access
David Condon, a member of the Senate Sub-Committee on Open Access, presented an update on the goals of that committee: to research the trends of open access — the theory that scholarly works should be free and digitally available — and its possible application at UO.
Condon said the goal of his committee’s research is to look into the current deal UO has with Elsevier, a Dutch academic publishing company. The University of California school system ended its contract with the publishing giant last year after their demands for free access to UC scholarly works were not met.
UO, Portland State University and Oregon State University are now looking at a similar option if their combined negotiations do not end in favor of more open access by the current deal’s end date in December. According to Condon, the current deal with Elsevier is worth “hundreds of thousands” of dollars.
Condon and the committee have finished a draft of a “white paper” laying out their findings to present to the Senate in May and will engage in outreach to inform stakeholders at UO.
Test-Optional Admissions
Director of Admissions Jim Rawlins and Executive Vice Provost for Academic Affairs Janet Woodruff-Borden presented their official recommendation that UO should move to “test-optional” admissions beginning effective immediately. The decision now lies in the hands of President Michael Schill and the provost.
Related: “Test optional? UO considers ditching the SAT/ACT for new applicants”
Rawlins and Woodruff-Borden cited a trend around the country of other major colleges and universities ditching the SAT/ACT requirement, including five of the eight public institutions in Oregon.
Winter Term Curriculum Report
The UO Committee on Courses submitted its Winter 2020 curriculum report to approve all new classes offered over the winter term. At a total of 360 new courses, this term set a record at UO for most new classes in a term.
The report also recognized the official approval of Bachelors of Science in Neuroscience and Data Science, changes in the English and Comparative Literature degrees and the official name change of International Studies to Global Studies, effective Fall 2020.
