EUGENE, Ore. ― University of Oregon President Michael Schill ― entering his ninth month as president ― is getting to the painful nub of his organizational shakeup.
Some tenured faculty are carrying skimpy teaching loads compared with others, Schill wrote in a recent memo addressed to the campus community.
Some departments hire more non-tenure track faculty to teach courses even as their student enrollment has declined, he wrote.
“We must do better, and we will do better,” wrote Schill, later adding, “To do anything less would consign our great university to mediocrity.”
Schill proposes shifting resources, including hiring as many as 100 new tenure-track faculty over five years in some disciplines ― but also letting go of non-tenured faculty in disciplines that are losing favor with students or no longer rank as highly in the university’s priorities.
Michael Dreiling, president of the UO’s faculty union, United Academics, said the university hasn’t pinpointed how many contracts it will not renew, but said he expects it to be more than 12 and fewer than 100.
Schill is scheduled to address the issue at daylong meetings of the UO Board of Trustees on Thursday and Friday at the Ford Alumni Center.
