The University administration’s failure to notify faculty members until after the plan to sell Westmoreland Apartments was put in motion isolates them and is an example of the administration’s detachment from the faculty, professors told University officials at Wednesday’s University Senate meeting.
“Most of us heard this from the newspaper and not anywhere else,” senator and biology professor Nathan Tublitz said. “How do you expect us to go forward when we are being told of the decision rather than decisions being made by all?”
Senator and English professor Lisa Freinkel said the closed-door decision is similar to decisions made in the past.
“How many times do we have to learn the same lesson?” Freinkel said. “If people hear about decisions like this either through the newspaper or getting an e-mail the day before they read it in the newspaper, they will feel not consulted, not respected.”
University Vice President for Finance and Administration Frances Dyke said University administrators are charged with being stewards of the University’s resources, and they are doing just that.
Dyke emphasized that the administration has not forgotten about the needs of students. She explained the missions of two task groups that have formed to address issues involving how to help students find new housing and how to accommodate the student-parents who have children in care programs at the Westmoreland Child Care Center and may have to seek other child-care options if the property is sold.
“We intend to learn how we can better serve the needs of this population as we’re going forward,” Dyke said.
Many students attended the meeting and held signs protesting the sale.
Some of the questions from senators centered on how the money from the sale will be spent, and Senior Vice President and Provost John Moseley assured the senate that all money from the sale will eventually be spent on student housing.
Some of the money may initially be spent on acquiring property closer to campus for other purposes while a plan for the student housing is finalized, Moseley said.
“But those purposes will generate the revenue so that the amount of money from this sale that will go to student housing will not be less than the amount of the sale,” Moseley said.
“I think in the end this will be a win-win,” he said.
Dyke said needed property acquisitions will likely be impossible unless Westmoreland is sold, and Moseley echoed that belief.
“If we do not sell it we have no – zero – resources with which to acquire any of this property that the University needs,” Moseley said.
Interim Vice President for Student Affairs and Director of University Housing Mike Eyster also said that the need to renovate and build new residence halls on campus is extreme, but there’s no money to do it unless Westmoreland is sold.
University officials emphasized that nonprofit organizations involved in low-income housing have shown interest in the site, which they said would minimize if not dissolve the negative effects the sale could have on the 592 people who currently live at Westmoreland.
“We don’t know for sure if that’s going to happen, but that is what both the real estate people in town and the appraisers say is the highest and best use, therefore the use that will get the University the best price,” Moseley said.
Bing Li, chairwoman of the Westmoreland Tenants Council, outlined her reasons for opposing the sale, asking why the University would want to sell property in which so many organizations see value.
She also criticized University President Dave Frohnmayer for his dream of securing a land bank in the east campus neighborhood to serve as his administration’s legacy.
“We shouldn’t sacrifice our homes and our children for someone’s personal dream,” Li said.
Some people have expressed concerns that the sale money could be used to help finance the basketball arena the University is hoping to build at the Williams’ Bakery site on Franklin Boulevard, but Moseley guaranteed that “not one dime of this money will go toward any arena.”
Frohnmayer said during his State of the University address later in the meeting that there is no arena, there is only hope for an arena.
Estimated to cost as much as $180 million, the arena will be financed through private fundraising efforts by the Athletics Department and through private loans taken by National Championship Properties, a subsidiary of the nonprofit organization the UO Foundation.
“It would require an heroic act of philanthropy to proceed,” Frohnmayer said.
Also at the meeting, the senate was notified of motions it will hear at its Nov. 30 meeting. One motion calls for public hearings regarding the University’s funding from the Department of Defense. Another would limit the amount of wireless Internet access in classrooms because of concerns that students spend time browsing Web sites rather than listening to professors and participating in class discussions.

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