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Oregon Drops the Ball on UO Leader
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page 4 The Portland Skanner
U
niversity
of
Oregon
President
Richard
Lariviere has been fired
over alleged “insubordination.”
We’re not surprised. We see it
every day in Oregon — anybody
who has a good idea is labeled an
outcast. We can identify with that.
But what’s especially disturbing
is how unprofessional the State
Board of Higher Education has
been over this situation. They
agree Lariviere has been an effec-
tive and charismatic leader but
when it comes to explaining exact-
ly why they’re booting him out
before the end of his contract the
language gets fuzzy: “style differ-
ences” seem to be the final verdict.
What it all boils down to is that
Lariviere wouldn’t stay on his
leash. Not only that, he called state
officials on the fact that only a
fraction of UO’s funding comes
from the state anymore anyway –
but the state still wants full control
over the university’s business.
That would be fine except the
state has for generations obviously
lacked any good ideas for running
the university system, otherwise
the community college system
wouldn’t have surpassed it in size
and scope, as it has.
While the Oregon Board of
Higher Education fumes over
whether or not Lariviere has dam-
aged their weak excuses for future
planning, other state officials are
ranting about the nerve of the
administrator who came up with
his own ideas – rather than going
along to get along like the other
college presidents are apparently
f rom THe
p ublISHer
Bernie Foster
expected to do.
Did the UO president rock the
boat? Good. Because in a state that
spends more money on incarcerat-
ing offenders than nurturing col-
lege students, someone should be
hollering at the top of their lungs
speaks for itself. But evaluating
his performance requires more,”
Kitzhaber wrote. “His responsibil-
ity to the Board of Higher
Education and his contribution to
the larger issues and success of the
entire system fall short.”
In other words – he didn’t do as
he was told.
Late Monday Lariviere sent out
his own comments to the media:
“Oregonians deserve better than
struggling to avoid mediocrity. If
we hope to find a way out of this
march to mediocrity in public
higher education, Oregonians
deserve our best thinking about
new approaches,” he wrote. “They
‘Oregonians deserve better than
struggling to avoid mediocrity’
--Richard Lariviere
about it. And that’s exactly what
Lariviere did, even as he steadily
built positive relationships with
communities of color around the
state.
Saturday morning we received a
long email from Gov. John
Kitzhaber detailing all the ways
that Lariviere failed to do as he
was told.
But is that his job? It appears
that the governor wanted a Yes
Man rather than a strategic leader
dedicated to pulling the University
of Oregon out of the flames of our
state’s economy.
“Dr. Lariviere’s popularity in the
University of Oregon community
deserve our willingness to engage
in uncomfortable conversations
that may challenge long-standing
practices.”
Earlier this year Lariviere trav-
eled all the way from Eugene to
North Portland, where he and for-
mer State Sen. Margaret Carter –
who hosted his trip – spoke with
our staff about the idea of creating
an automatic admission system at
UO for students at Jefferson High
School.
“I strongly believe that students
of color have a significant contri-
bution to make within the
University community – and it’s a
contribution that we are sorely
lacking,” he said. “What if we
could find a way to ensure that stu-
dents of color had an opportunity
to obtain an education the
University of Oregon?”
Months later, the “middle cam-
pus” program at Jefferson High
School was officially announced,
fulfilling the question he posed—
with the partnership of nearly half
a dozen educational and govern-
mental institutions stretched
halfway across the state.
That’s the kind of leadership we
can believe in, not the governor
ranting about why his orders are
being ignored.
what do you think?
post your comment on articles in The
Skanner News at www.theskanner.com
New York Life: Parades and ‘Nut Drivers’
“J
immy, Jimmy...give this
man what he wants but
DON’T HELP HIM.”
It all started innocently enough
with the purchase of a “nut driver”
at my (former) favorite neighbor-
hood hardware store. Normally, I
would have searched out the tool
myself but the nut drivers were
hanging high above me so I asked
“Jimmy” for assistance. I handed
him the nut I needed to drive and
he selected the tool. Unfortunately,
when I got the tool home, it was
the wrong size. I took it back. The
manager was nearly apoplectic
that I wanted to return the tool
despite the fact that his employee
had picked it out for me. So….
Jimmy was loudly instructed to
not help me anymore. Finally, a
New York shop keeper worthy of
my disdain!
Now, it took me five months to
come across such a jerk but, yet,
many of our out-of-town friends
would fully expect to encounter
this type of treatment the minute
they set foot in New York City. An
Australian colleague, here on a
business trip, recently asked me if
it was safe to ride the subway to
reach our apartment at 7 p.m. He,
of course, didn’t realize that 7 p.m.
is still rush hour, but, even if he
had said 11 p.m., I would have told
him it was safe. Old stereotypes
about this town die hard.
One thing that hasn’t changed
about New York is the need for
resolve. I ride the train (subway)
to work. One many days, I’m
faced with a dilemma. A seat-hog
november 30, 2011
p orTlanDer In nYC
Jeff Tryens
will, for either physio- or psycho-
logical reasons, occupy way more
than one seat. Sometimes two seat
hogs will sit next to one another
hogging a middle third seat. Sure,
I could just stand there waiting for
a seat to open up at Times Square,
OR I could plop myself down, cut-
ting right through the hogger’s lit-
My favorite part of the parade
was the float representing the
Oneida Indian Nation. It was a
fantastic combination of Oneida
beliefs, note creation story giant
turtle (Oops, sorry about that miss-
ing head.), and total kitsch, note,
well, the whole float. I understand
that the Oneida’s gambling opera-
tions give them the luxury to be in
the parade, but I admire their
attempts to marry traditional
beliefs with the dominant culture.
Assuming, of course, it’s not a
A seat-hog will, for either physio- or
psychological reasons, occupy way
more than one seat
tle “I dare you” shield. Well,
believe me, that requires resolve to
do on a regular basis.
I enjoyed my first perk of the job
this weekend. I was a winner in
the Mayor’s office lottery for
bleacher tickets to the Macy’s
Thanksgiving Day parade. What a
scene. The same number of people
that live in the entire state of
Oregon line the streets of New
York to watch this extravaganza. It
was really fun but a little disap-
pointing. After you’ve seen 20
giant balloons, number 21 looks a
lot the same. Same goes for weird-
ly dressed marching band
majorettes. And so on. There’s a
kind of corporatized sameness to
the procession that’s just a little
boring.
cynical attempt to fit in allowing
them to maintain their monopoly
on the lucrative gambling trade.
Nah.
Every once in a while I am
struck with disbelief that we’re
actually living in Manhattan. The
other evening Pat and I stood on a
high rock in lower Central Park
overlooking a busy ice skating
rink framed with trees in the fore-
ground, tall buildings in the back-
ground all set off by a gorgeous
pink sky. Stunning. And to think
we were just taking a little detour
(that also included Rockefeller
Plaza) on our way to a see a
movie. It felt like we were in a
movie!
Work has been a little more chal-
lenging for me since city govern-
ment started pushing back against
the Occupy Wall Street movement.
I haven’t had to do anything that I
found distasteful but being on the
other side of the metaphorical
fence when the pushing and shov-
ing starts is no fun. I find it very
unfortunate that a group who’s
purpose is to expose the increasing
wealth disparities in this country
by focusing on corporate greed
has, in the process, made life mis-
erable for some of the country’s
most progressive mayors.
My latest challenge - I’m hiring
a statistician to develop a new
project in Operations based on a
concept called predictive analyt-
ics. By integrating data from lots
of different sources, we’re going
to try to predict the likelihood of
problems arising in the future. For
instance, we’re already looking at
how to better predict which acci-
dents will result in successful
claims against city government. A
colleague has created a program
that spits out a weekly list of the
25 residential buildings at highest
risk of a catastrophic fire based on
six different variables his team
examines. The idea is use these
techniques to better marshal
scarce prevention resources.
Anyway, I’m hoping that the
help in my new favorite hardware
store (which looks amazingly like
my old hardware store) will be
nicer. Who, after all, wants to live
in a neighborhood without a
decent hardware store?