At this point in time, I can say with confidence that our University is headed toward murky waters.
Over the past month, University President Richard Lariviere has become increasingly clandestine in divulging information. First, he denied an interview to Alex Tomchak Scott of the Oregon Commentator, citing vulgarity in the publication’s previous issue as the reason for denial. Then Lariviere proceeded to call the publication “sophomoric, and a waste of his time.”
When a magazine puts genitalia on the front of its cover, one could argue that it severed its own access.
Yet within a week, Lariviere denied Stefan Verbano, former news reporter and current news editor for the Emerald, an interview. His secretary said he had “no further comment on the issue.” This refusal made it clear that the president does not care what type of publication is requesting information, even if it is from his institution’s daily student newspaper.
If it is transparency the students want, the president cannot give it.
In only his second year as the chief public figure, administrator and fund-raiser for this University, it is becoming increasingly evident that he will operate behind closed doors. This week, his New Partnership for funding was taken to the state capital. The proposal would effectively privatize our University, creating a public-private 1.6 billion dollar endowment made up of private donations and state-backed bonds. The state bonds would be paid off after 30 years, which would then make our University entirely private.
The only body holding our University financially accountable would be a fifteen-member appointed board in charge of overseeing our operations.
In theory, the proposal is excellent. It comes at a time when state funding is below 8 percent and continues to decrease. It could potentially generate operating revenue in the multi-millions in its first year. But the issue is not with the money.
The issue is with who is giving the money and why.
If our University is already becoming less transparent while it is still “public,” who says it will be transparent when it is essentially “private” and autonomous? During my freshman year at this institution, I saw firsthand how any threat to private donors could be easily silenced.
I was working for the Annual Giving Program, a student-fundraising program within the Department of Development.
Each day I would report to work and make phone calls to alumni, some of them fresh out of college with thousands of dollars of student loans to pay. Following a carefully constructed script, I was encouraged to guilt-trip former students into giving more money to the University, even after they had graduated.
As callers, we would present an entirely biased funding dilemma to alumni.
We would talk about the cuts to our state funding, and how our expensive tuition only funded a fraction of our education. We would romanticize about how much we love studying at the University, and how it is the responsibility of our alumni to help us continue enjoying that privilege. If they mentioned the financial success of athletics, we were instructed to divert the conversation, saying, “Athletics are their own thing.”
I was an extremely successful student-caller. On a few occasions I raised more than two thousand dollars in one week, and I even had days where every alumnus I called gave the University money. At the beginning of each week, we would divide into groups with our supervisor and discuss the past week’s successes. Quite frequently, I raised more money than the rest of my entire group combined.
It seemed as though I was an irreplaceable asset to the AGP. However, that all changed when I wrote a guest column entitled “Knight Owns Majority Share” in the very paper I work for today.
The column talked about our funding model, the process of giving within development, and a case where a multi-day student-protest against sweatshop labor was rendered pointless after former University President Dave Frohnmayer was left with no choice but to take back Knight’s money. Most of the information in the column I had learned while working for the AGP.
A week later, I was fired.
They cited “attendance reasons,” though I had been no more than two minutes late a week before.
“When I worked there, people with little productivity had large attendance problems,” said University student Ryan Buckley, a former employee of the AGP. “People often made up excuses to skip work.”
Buckley said he felt that working at the AGP gave him a much more accurate picture of our funding situation.
“We would try to get people to give us money while giving them a truly disingenuous picture of what’s going on here,” he said. “If we were really trying to tighten our belts, then how have we in the past year and a half added four major construction projects on this campus?”
Right now the proposal and an alternative, SB 242, are moving through our legislature. It risks changing this University from a quasi-corporation to a full-fledged degree mill. While Phil Knight has already set aside money for yet another new athletic facility, Prince Lucien Campbell Hall remains an eyesore for prospective and current students, faculty and community members alike.
“Their justification for all these new developments is that it helps attract more funding,” Buckley said. “That excuse only really goes so far. There is obviously money somewhere, and on the other hand you’re telling people there isn’t money. I know it’s compartmentalized, athletics and academics. But that argument wears kind of thin. The two things don’t match up.”
Transparency has been a problem in political and educational administrations nationwide, but Lariviere has demonstrated he has little to no intentions of changing that trend. As we move out of the public sector, this could pose a serious threat to the academic freedom and equality this establishment was founded on.
Welcome to Nike University, Oregon’s newest private institution.
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Costigan: Corruption, Nike dependency fuels campus privatization
Daily Emerald
March 3, 2011
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